


Space is Danger and Pain

by thevampiredolphin



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Basically a rewrite of ST:ID, F/M, Jim's only dead for a little bit I promise, M/M, Reader Insert, can you see the parts that I actually put effort into?, established relationship with McCoy, honestly this is just plain indulgent, medical bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 16:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15005183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thevampiredolphin/pseuds/thevampiredolphin
Summary: You and Lee are in an established relationship and are renowned doctors on the 'fleet's flagship. Now the two of you have to go through the bullshit that are the events of Into Darkness. The events of the movie are there in essence, but of course things are shifted around to accommodate you.





	Space is Danger and Pain

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic on AO3, so please be gentle. Posted all in one go because I've had this thing for awhile and have no idea where to cut it.
> 
> I'm thevampiredolphin on tumblr.

“Did you get the notification?”

Lee leans his head out of the bathroom, his mouth foamy and toothbrush sticking out the side. He’s not even dressed yet. “‘Ish ‘ne?”

The fact that he even has to ask answers your question, so you try to break the news as gently as possible. An awkward smile cracks your face, and you shift in your position on the bed. “The one about the mission debrief? Where it says you beam down with Jim and act as a distraction so we can save the planet without breaking the Prime Directive? Nibiru?”

“ _What?_ ” He ducks back into the bathroom to spit and pops back out again, hackles raising and the vein in his temple beginning to throb. “When did that sonofa—?”

“Just before you went into the bathroom!” You interrupt, hands going up in a display of innocence. “I didn’t know if you’d checked your PADD or not.”

Lee’s mouth sets into a hard line, his eyes darkening and his eyebrows furrowing. You do not like that look. “He’s on shift, right?” He asks through clenched teeth.

“No, _no_! Don’t go and storm onto the bridge—” He’s already making his way to the closet to yank on his uniform. Your mind racing, you try to come up with something to stop him from murdering Jim. Well, not _murder_ , but a very thorough and loud lecture. With witnesses. Maybe reason would get through to him? _Worth a shot_. You run a hand through your hair, trying on your most convincing voice when you say, “Jim probably has good reason. Spock even agreed to it.”

“I don’t give a damn. Makin’ me beam down on a mission I didn’t even know existed with less than a day’s notice. He doesn’t care abut the patients I have to see or the paperwork that I have to get through…” He grumbles. His hair’s all mussed from pulling the shirt on, nearly taking the bite from his words. You have to keep your hands from reaching to smooth it down. That would not bode well for you; you have a very precious position, being Lee’s girlfriend who could do (nearly) no wrong. It’s a coveted situation, with special privileges that are not to be put in jeopardy.

“The official debrief is in an hour,” you plead, putting as much sugar and honey into your voice as possible. It’s too early for him to go make an ass of himself on the ship. “Can you wait an hour? Eat, get some coffee first?”

You let out a relieved puff of air when his shoulders fall at the suggestion. “I’ll eat. But I’m not waiting a whole hour.”

Now you smooth his ruffled hair, letting your fingers trail along the side of his face. He’s clean-shaven from his shower, you notice distractedly. “Thank you. Promise it’s not gonna be as bad as you think.”

___

“— Y/N, you’re gonna have to assume the duties of CMO for, like, eight hours while we do this. Nothing you haven’t done before. And then Spock deploys his super-ice cube while we all rush to get back onto the _Enterprise_. Boom. Planet saved, no rules broken.” Jim’s grin would be convincing if you hadn’t just heard what’d come out of his mouth.

“You want to freeze a _volcano_?” Lee nearly shouts in the silence following Jim’s spiel. Nodding warily, Jim gives you a pleading look over your boyfriend’s shoulder. In front of you, Lee’s hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose, his shoulders a tense line, and you offer no sympathy to the pleading blond, puppy-dog eyes be damned.

Technically, you’re not supposed to be here, but since Lee’s leaving his post for a good amount of time (meaning you get CMO responsibilities for a bit, as Jim stated), you are. Right now, the away team (Spock, Jim, Uhura, Sulu, and Lee) are in the Conference Room along with those who are helping with the mission, but aren’t necessarily going (you and Scotty). Spock is on Jim’s right, Lee on his left. You’re standing behind Lee, and the rest of the group is filling in the seats on either side of the table.

When the debrief began, you’d listened with an open mind, hoping that you were right and Lee’s little freak-out in your quarters earlier had been for nothing. Now, you’re not entirely convinced. “Are you sure there isn’t any other way to save the species?” You ask.

Spock answers with an inclination of his head. “Doctor L/N, I assure you I have researched all other alternative solutions. This is the most effective method of saving the planet’s inhabitants without breaking the Prime Directive.”

“Well, we don’t really have a choice, then, do we?” Scotty says, pushing up from the table. He’d been all for saving Nibiru, even though there’s quite a bit of risk involved. “What are we waitin’ for? We got a schedule to keep. I just gotta beam you lot down an’ then—”

Jim stops him, following his lead and getting up as well. “Actually, Scotty, the volcano’s magnetic fields would mess up any attempts to beam down, and we need the shuttle to be in close proximity to where this thing’s gonna go down. We were hoping, since there’s a good-sized ocean right next to the crater, we could just… put the ship there.”

In a flash, the man’s jovial energy is gone, replaced by the conflicting emotions of wanting to please the captain and wanting to protect the _Enterprise_. Most likely, he’d assumed that the _Enterprise_ would orbit Nibiru, patiently waiting until the mission concluded and he beamed the away team aboard. He twists his mouth, having made a decision. “Sir, I dunno if she could handle the corrosive salt water for an extended period of time.”

“What kind of window do we have, then?” Jim’s eyebrows draw together. He leans on the back of the chair he previously occupied, his arms folding over one another. Something tells you that no matter what timeframe Scotty gives him that he’ll push the envelope. Call it intuition.

“Well…” Scotty jerks his shoulders, head wiggling a little in contemplation. “A day. Max.”

Jim nods. “Well, then we have a day to save the planet. Bones, I’ll have your disguise delivered to your quarters. The rest of you, prepare for a busy day tomorrow.”

With that, the room quickly clears out. Jim and Spock immediately start murmuring to each other, the other bridge crew start their own conversation, and you snatch Lee’s PADD to start syncing up any ongoing patient charts. He’s probably wanting to chase after Jim and give him a piece of his mind, but his compassion for this endangered race is probably what’s keeping him in check.

“He knows I hate last-minute missions,” Lee says while the two of you make your way over to medbay. You bump his shoulder in an attempt to distract him. The grey storm cloud remains nonetheless.

“Well, he couldn’t’ve taken me. I’m way too clumsy, and Chekov needs to help Scotty on the bridge because Sulu’s going.” The doors slide open and you continue your conversation as you stride through the bay towards the CMO’s office. It’s a normal, quiet day, with the beds mostly unoccupied, save for the one or two people from Engineering with minor burns. You lean against the wall while Lee punches in his passcode. “Besides, were you gonna say no and doom an entire planet?”

He huffs, the last of his anger gone along with the breath. “No.”

Your hand comes up to rest on his shoulder, thumb moving back and forth in slow circles. He leans into it, just a bit, before the doors open.

“Everything should be in order,” he says, going over to the desk. His hands wander across the various stacks of PADDs he has piled up, eyes distracted and distant, while he mumbles a bit. It sounds like he’s meaning to speak to you, but he ends up mostly talking to himself. “You synced the files, right? So everything should be all set up. If there’s anything special, you know how I keep my notes. Uh…”

It makes something twinge in your chest to see him worked up. To say you aren’t worried about the outcome of tomorrow’s mission is a blatant lie. Jim’s taking a risk and hoping he doesn’t break the Prime Directive. Yes, to break it in the name of saving a species is good reason, but Starfleet isn’t very forgiving even with that. Besides, who knows how dangerous the actual planet is. What about its inhabitants? There are very real risks, and now you can see why Lee’s so anxious.

Sitting against the desk, you place a hand over his to pull him out of his head. “Lee.”

“Mmh?” Lee’s gaze doesn’t move for a second, too focused on a patch of air somewhere in the room and whatever chaos is taking up space in his head.

“You’ll be fine. It might suck while you’re there, but you’ll get through it. And you’ll have helped save a planet.”

His tongue runs along the inside of his lip, and his eyes refocus as he tries to make his thoughts slow. The hand under yours turns, palm up, and laces your fingers together. Eventually he sighs, nodding and settling back against the chair. “Yeah, I know. I just can’t help it.”

“It’s okay. I know, and you’re allowed to worry. Just focus on doing what you need to do, and hopefully it’s over soon. Sound like a plan?”

He scrubs a hand down the side of his face. “Yeah.”

___

Lee had left early in the morning, wrapped in the neutral colors of what you can only describe as ‘nomad-clothes’. There was a headscarf that served to hide his ears and hair, with another cloth to hide the rest of his face. The outfit itself was comprised of a couple wraps and robes that swayed and gave bulk to hide the specifics of his humanoid form. Basically, you couldn’t tell what he looked like in any capacity unless you removed the clothes. It’s reassuring that there’s at least a bit of thought going into this mission.

 That’d been around seven hours ago, and try as you might, you cannot help but worry for Lee and the others. It’s a volcano they’re trying to stop, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like they have to solve some petty political issue; they’re going against Mother Nature. The only reason you’re not completely against the idea (barring the fact that it’s way too late to try to stop them) is because Spock, Scotty, and Jim did the math. There must be significant statistical evidence that suggests that they’re likely to succeed. This is what’s keeping you from staying glued to Scotty’s side down in Engineering, waiting for the away team to come back. That, and the fact that you’re acting CMO right now and it would be pretty irresponsible of you to leave the medbay unattended.

Your comm beeps, and you almost drop it in your haste to get it open. “Scotty?”

He sounds a bit breathless, like he’s fast-walking. If you focus just a bit, you can hear the _dink_ of his boots along the metal floor. “ _Y/N, I just got word that Doctor McCoy and the captain are coming aboard within the next few minutes. Come down to Engineering and we’ll meet them at the airlock_.”

“The airlock?” You ask, worry evident in your voice already. Why hadn’t they come back with the shuttle?

“ _Apparently, the shuttle had a bit of an issue_ ,” he replies, answering your unspoken question. It feels like ice water has just been injected into your veins, and apprehension, dark and heavy, forms a knot in your stomach.

“An issue? What do you mean an—?”

Scotty cuts you off. “ _Just get down here. Scott out_.”

“Nurse Chapel,” you call as you grab a medkit from the nurses’ station, already striding out of the bay, “I’m going to receive the captain. Hold down the fort?”

You hear her reply of “ _Yes, doctor_ ,” as the doors slide open and try not start running to the turbolift.

___

The breath leaves you in a rush when the airlock doors open and reveal the soaked captain and doctor in their regulation wetsuits. Lee flicks off his goggles with a snarl and starts to stalk towards Jim, who seems too preoccupied to notice. They both seem relatively unscathed, and you want to hurry in and check on them, but Scotty, who also notices their condition, takes the opportunity to give Jim a piece of his mind.

“Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to hide a starship on the bottom of the ocean? We've been down here since last night. The salt water's going to ruin the—”

Jim sidesteps Lee and faces Scotty with a question of his own. “Scotty, where's Spock?”

He grimaces, and you realize that you want to know as well. “Still in the volcano, sir.”

 _Oh no, no, no_. Jim starts running, leaving the three of you to stare at the spot where he’d been standing until about half a second ago. Belatedly, you all move to follow him to the bridge.

“Are you okay?” You ask Lee while you run to the turbolift. You skitter around a curve and he grabs your arm to keep you from falling. Even in a crisis your clumsiness cannot be avoided. Lee’s long since grown used to it.

“I’m fine. The wetsuit’s gonna start to chafe soon, though.”

You snort and slow as you approach the lift, where Jim waits impatiently. “What happened?”

“Well, Jim went into a village and told me to go get us a ride back to where the shuttle dropped us off,” he says, punching in the request to go to the bridge, “Comes back with a mob chasing after him, stuns our ride, forces me to run through a goddamn alien forest with spears whizzing past our heads, and then makes me jump off a _cliff_ —”

“Bones, you know plans change on missions, sometimes,” Jim states just before the doors open.

“Keptin on the bridge,” Chekov calls from his console.

Jim sees that Uhura is on the bridge, still in the jumpsuit from the shuttle, and immediately strides over to her. “Lieutenant, do we have an open channel to Mister Spock?”

She nods, placing her earpiece in, and says, “The heat's frying his comm, but we still have contact.”

While she manipulates her console to put Spock on speaker, you can practically hear Jim hold his breath. You gnaw on the inside of your lip, shifting your weight between your feet until you hear the little crackle over the bridge speakers that signals the established connection. The captain lets out a small sigh of relief at the fact that the comm is still responding to the ship.

 “Spock?” Comes Jim’s hesitant voice.

“I have activated the device, captain,” Spock reports over the dull roar of the lava around him. Even knowing that Vulcan Compartmentalization is at work, you still wonder how he’s remaining so calm. “When the countdown is complete, the reaction should render the volcano inert.”

Lee snorts at his nonchalance. “Yeah, and that's going to render him inert.”

“Do we have use of the transporters?” Jim asks, deigning to ignore Lee’s comment.

Sulu shakes his head. “Negative, sir.”

“Not vith these magnetic fields,” Chekov adds.

“I need to beam Spock back to the ship.” Jim rubs a hand across his mouth and turns to face his helmsman, navigator, and Chief Engineer. “Give me one way to do it.”

Chekov’s bows furrow, and he worries his lip for a few seconds before speaking up. “Maybe if ve had a direct line of sight… if ve got closer.”

“Hold on, wee man,” Scotty says, stepping forward at the idea of putting the ship in danger. “You're talking about an active volcano. Sir, if that thing erupts, I cannae guarantee we can withstand the heat.”

“I don't know if we can maintain that kind of altitude,” Sulu adds after corroborating some values on the console.

Spock decides that he needs to contribute as well, wasting precious seconds to agree with the Chief Engineer and helmsman. The activity of the volcano is nearly overpowers Spock’s voice, and coupled with the crackle of his deteriorating comm, you have to pick his voice out from all the interference. “Our shuttle was concealed by the ash cloud, but the _Enterprise_ is too large. If utilized in a rescue effort, it would be revealed to the indigenous species.”

“Spock,” Jim sighs, rolling his eyes even though Spock can’t see him, “Nobody knows rules better than you, but there has _got_ to be an exception.”

“None.” You can imagine him decisively shaking his head at the implication. “Such action violates the Prime Directive.”

Your heart sinks, and you dig your nails into your palms. Part of you agrees with him— regulation is a big deal after all, and it’s in place for a reason— but a larger part of you just wants to tell the pointy-eared idiot— “Shut up, Spock. We're trying to save you, dammit!”

Well, Lee does it for you. Pretty succinctly, in fact.

“Doctor, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

“Spock, we're talking about your life!” Jim tries. The desperation in his voice is palpable, and you want to go and smack Spock upside the head to make him listen to reason. As it is, you have to refrain from going off on him for Jim and Lee over the comm. You settle for crossing your arms, apprehension knotting in your stomach.

“The rule cannot be broken—” Spock’s last appeal is lost in the static as the volcano finally eats up the connection. He’s resigned himself to die, you can feel it. Try as you might, you can’t help but feel that you’ve lost a friend, and you hope to God that Jim can pull something out to save his XO. Your hand goes to push against your lips in an attempt to ground yourself.

As soon as the connection goes down, Jim springs into action, not letting a millisecond go to waste. “Spock!” He turns to Sulu and Chekov. “Try to get him back online.”

“Ninety seconds to detonations,” Chekov grimly informs the bridge.

“If Spock were here and I were there, what would he do?” Jim turns to you and Lee. His eyes are huge, demanding honestly. Now is not the time to sugarcoat.

“He'd let you die,” you reply instantly. There’s a twinge in your chest at the thought, but the truth of the statement reverberates in your bones. Lee, who has more tact than you do, reluctantly nods in agreement at Jim’s imploring look. He would try any and all alternatives that wouldn’t break the Prime Directive, but ultimately, if it came down to a choice between regulation and the captain, Spock would pick regulation. He wouldn’t allow his own personal feelings to factor into the situation.

Jim stares at the viewport for all of two seconds before making up his mind. “Mister Sulu, get us as close to the volcano as you can. I don’t care about stealth right now. We have less than eighty-four seconds to save Spock.”

Sulu nods at the same time Scotty sighs, and you, Jim, and Lee start making your way down to the transporter room. While you’re waiting for the lift, Jim informs the crew there that they’re going to need to locate and beam Spock aboard.

“I hope we’re not about to see a very crispy Vulcan right now,” you mutter quietly, looking down at your hands. When you look up, it’s to hard stares from your best friends. Yeah… probably not the best thing to say right now. “Sorry.”

The ride in the turbolift is thankfully short, and when the doors open, Jim rushes out, leaving you and Lee only the the flash of his command gold around the corner. Switching the medkit between your hands, you follow him. _Please be fine—_

“Spock!” Jim yells at the glowing shape on the transporter pad, “You all right?”

 He finishes materializing, the big, bulky mass of his thermal-suit clanking. Through the little window of his helmet, you can see his angry eyebrows. Well, as angry as he’ll allow himself to look. “Captain, you let them see our ship.”

“Oh, he's fine,” Lee huffs. Any concern that’d been present in his features melts away, replaced by his customary grumpy face.

“Bridge to Captain Kirk.” It’s Uhura’s voice.

“Yes, lieutenant.”

“Is Commander Spock on board, sir?” You have a feeling that the answer will be broadcasted to the bridge.

Jim nods, tossing a soft smile in his direction. “Safely and soundly.”

You think you hear the sound of the bridge crew sighing in relief. “Please notify him that his device has successfully detonated.”

“You hear that?” Jim asks, beaming. He’s radiating pride, and he raises a hand to Spock’s shoulder. “Congratulations, Spock. You just saved the world.”

“You violated the Prime Directive,” he pouts. There’s some green high on his cheeks, but you have a feeling that it’s mostly because he can’t fathom the fact that Jim broke it _for_ him.

“Oh, come on, Spock. They saw us. Big deal.” Jim shrugs and claps a hand against the metal of the suit, a large grin splitting his face.

He’s Admiral Pike’s golden boy, what consequences could he possibly suffer?

___

The mission to Nibiru had been a few days ago, and you’d returned to Earth two days after that. The crew was especially grateful for the prompt return— it’d been a few weeks since you’d departed from HQ— but none more so than you and Lee. Your birthday is this week, and as much as you love space, you wanted to spend it on your home planet.

Lee’s sitting up in bed rubbing the sleep out of his eyes in the morning light so he can face the day for the first time. He wasn’t trying to, but his shifting wakes you up. You murmur a soft “ _Good morning”_ and tell him so, to which he apologizes and traces his fingers down your arm.

The gentle gesture makes you smile, and you prepare to begin the morning routine. Reaching over to your nightstand, you intend to view an anticipated notification from your parents, but end up surprised when there’s also a notification informing you of a change in command on the _Enterprise_. The warm haze in your brain is flushed out by ice-water running through your veins, and it makes you bolt upright, hair settling wildly about you in tangles.

“What, happened?” Lee asks, curious about your sudden movements.

“Am I reading this right?” You whisper to yourself. After squinting your eyes and moving closer to the screen, the words blurring from your just-waking-up, you see that you are in fact reading the notification correctly. You look up, a thudding pressure already pushing up behind your eyes. His expression mirrors yours, features etched with worry. “Lee, Jim got demoted. Pike’s the captain again, and Spock got transferred.”

His eyes widen, the hazel seeming to shift as he’s flooded with confusion. That obviously wasn’t what he expected to hear. “Where?”

“ _U.S.S. Bradbury_.”

“Well, it’s not too much of a move. _Bradbury’s_ not that old.”

You’re shaking your head. It’s both an attempt to process and to deny what you’re reading, and you keep asking yourself, _What the fuck did they do—_? It hits you, then, the realization sinking your chest like a lead balloon. “Nibiru.”

“Jim said that he—”

“No, no. Not Jim.” Pinching your lips, you try to figure out why he’d do it. Some higher demand for ethics? But he usually doesn’t even write his own separate reports, just perusing Jim’s instead...

“Spock?” You nod. “He wouldn’t. Why?”

“I… I don’t know, Lee.”

After shooting a message to Jim, you get a short reply that he can’t really talk because he has to be with Pike on a debrief for what happened in London. When you ask what happened in London, he tells you to check the news. Before you can send out anything else, the dot by his name turns red. _Do not disturb_. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

Quickly, you click onto the internet and discover the cause of upset.

_— Starfleet officer Thomas Harewood reported to his post at the Kelvin Memorial Archive in London around noon (GMT) today, where he detonated some kind of explosive. The explosion killed everyone within three decks of level B10, where Harewood worked. Those who were just outside of the blast radius sustained serious injuries and were transported to nearby Starfleet Medical facilities. Authorities are still trying to determine a motive for the lieutenant’s actions—_

There’s a reflexive urge to call Jim, for London, for Spock, but he’s closed himself to you, at least for now.

Hopefully he’ll talk to you later.

___

Lee tightens his grip around you in the quiet and begins humming, low and warm into the crook of your neck, _happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you_.

“Lee,” you murmur. Your eyes squint, reluctant to face the anticipated morning light. When you open your eyes, the first thing you notice are the shades of grey that cling to everything in the room, the sky outside still black, which tells you that it wasn’t Lee just being courteous with the lights and saving your eyes. Then you notice that he’s still repeating the first phrase of the song. _How tired is he?_ “How many times are you gonna hum the first bit?”

He pulls you even closer, a hand dipping under your oversized flannel sleep shirt to feel skin, before he realizes he should continue. “… _Happy birthday, dear Y/N._ ” He burrows further against your neck, nose buried in your hair, hands sleepily tracing whatever he feels until yours go to rest on top of his. “ _Happy birthday to… you.”_

“What time is it?”

“Just after midnight,” he breathes. “Your PADD was pinging like crazy a few minutes ago. Assumed it was your mom.”

You wiggle at the ticklish feeling of his exhale against your skin. “I, ah, turned off my sound before bed. It was probably yours.”

“I doubt it. What could’ve happened,” he asks detaching himself from you to check and prove you wrong, “That anyone would—?”

The sudden silence has you worried, and after a few seconds you look up to see Lee’s lips mouthing along to some words on his PADD, the little bit of light leaving his face mostly in shadow so you can barely tell he’s doing even that. In a fit of motion, you sit up to read over his shoulder. Consciousness settles onto you like a ton of bricks because of the cooler air of the room coupled with your departure from your warm spot in the blanket.

The words _attack_ , _High Command meeting_ , and _numerous casualties_ jump out at you. _Oh no, no, no, no._ Jim was at that meeting. He’s Pike’s XO. And Spock. There aren’t any names mentioned in the article, so you’re left along with Lee and anyone else privy to the event to wonder if your friends were caught in the crossfire.

Your comm gives a high whine from where it’s charging on the nightstand, and you lunge over to it. In your haste, there’s no time to check who the incoming frequency belongs to. Dexterity fails, and your fingers fumble through the motion of getting the thing open.

“L/N.” Your name sounds more like a pitched puff of air than intelligible speech.

“ _Y/N!_ ” The caller yells. They’re rushed, frazzled. Your heart stops, yet blood roars in your ears.

Relief crashes into you like a wave, and you’re stunned for all of two seconds, your hand automatically darting to grasp Lee’s forearm in shock so you can process and say the first thing that comes to mind. “Jim!”

“ _Is Bones there?_ ” He doesn’t seem to care that everyone in Starfleet just received a notification about his possible death. No consideration for his friends, his two _best_ friends, who love him, that had just seen that message and had to contend with the possibility of him not being here anymore.

“Yes, yes, he’s here. Jesus, Jim, we just saw what happened at the meeting. Are you—?” The words spill out as quickly as you think them. He doesn’t seem to be in any immediate danger, thank god.

“ _I need you both to come to HQ. We’re going to track down the bastard responsible for the attack. Scotty found his coordinates_.”

Lee’s eyes bulge at the statement, his lips curling into a snarl. “What?! Track who down? Dammit, Jim, you can’t call us in the wee hours of the goddamn morning and demand –”

“ _Shuttles depart in four hours_. _Kirk out_.”

___

When Jim sees the glare you level at him at 0500, standing next to the shuttle you’ll be departing on in fifteen minutes, he considers boarding a different vessel.

His plans are foiled, however, when someone calls out to him. Lee’s striding over with a medkit, hair slightly disheveled already from his hands having run through it, “Jim! Where were you?”

“What do you mean?” He’s still keyed up from Scotty’s discovery and doesn’t heed the early hour. Pike is dead, and Jim can’t really process the true extent of that fact yet. Lee continues to scold him about the lack of a physical exam following the unexpected firefight. The two of them meet you at the shuttle ramp, and when they get close enough for you to hear their bickering—

_“I’m fine,” Jim says._

_“The hell you are,” Lee snarls, yanking him back by his sleeve._

— You board.

You know how you look right now. Years of being on-call have graced you with numerous periods where you’ve had to be awake and alert at a moment’s notice. While you may appear put together— your hair up and tamed, grey flight uniform on and without a wrinkle— the combination of fatigue and aggravated worry for Jim gives you an expression that you can feel is less-than-friendly. The hard seats inside the vessel don’t help matters. Your hands push against your eyes, and you leave them there until you start to see spots in the dark of your eyelids. Sighing, you lean your head back, eyes closed, and try to will yourself enough patience to last you until you make it to medbay.

“Why is she so mad at me?” You hear Jim try to ask quietly. Air stirs around you as your two best friends settle in. Jim sits in the row of seats in front of you, while Lee takes the space beside you, leaving the one open space in the row of three nearest the aisle. He’s rummaging around the medkit, too preoccupied with giving Jim the physical exam he refused to get to actually listen to his question.

“It’s my birthday,” you say. The hushed evenness of your words quiets those around you until the only sound contending with your voice is the hum of the shuttle’s engine as it warms up. Any expression that isn’t shame is drained from Jim’s face along with the remaining color in his cheeks. Your eyes are still closed. “You nearly gave me a heart attack by comming me after you almost died. Just after midnight. On my birthday. And then, with no warning or explanation, told us we’re going to space to deliver some vigilante justice. On my birthday.”

Lee pauses his actions to level a burning glare at the captain for you. Jim’s mouth opens— to apologize or justify, even he doesn’t know— but Spock appears, unaware of the tension, and stops his attempt. “Captain, the _Enterprise_ should be ready for launch by the time we arrive.”

“Good… Good.” His mouth pulls at the fact that he’s essentially unapologetic for his actions. He’ll talk to you later… hopefully. So maybe he can make amends then. In the meantime, he has a responsibility to his ship, his crew, and Pike to uphold. Who knows if Harrison is still even on Kronos anymore?

“Thank you for requesting my reinstatement.”

Jim turns his full attention to his First Officer, who settles in the seat nearest the window. It doesn’t escape Lee’s notice that he leaves a buffer seat between them. “You're welcome.”

A whirring tricorder from the medkit is held up to Jim’s face, assessing his vitals and checking for any injuries. Jim twitches at the noise. It’s subtle enough that Spock sees it and doesn’t say anything, while Lee doesn’t take his eyes from the screen.

“As I am again your First Officer, it is now my duty to strongly object to our mission parameters.”

 “Of course it is,” Jim sighs. It’s a combination of Jim being dramatic and you knowing him well enough after so long that you can tell he’s currently rolling his eyes. You fight to keep your lips from reactively quirking into a smile.

Spock continues, far too used to Jim’s exasperation. “There is no Starfleet regulation that condemns a man to die without a trial, something you and Admiral Marcus are forgetting. Also, preemptively firing torpedoes at the Klingon homeworld goes against—”

 _That_ gets your attention.

 “Wait a minute—” Lee’s eyes flip up from the tricorder in his confusion.

“— We're firing torpedoes at the Klingons?” You ask. The query has you sitting up and leaning over in an attempt to get a straight answer from them. Jim owes you a straight answer for all the bullshit of the past forty-eight hours.

Spock raises his eyebrows at Jim in a look that clearly says, _See, you’re acting crazy right now. Not me._ “Regulations aside, this action is morally wrong.”

“Regulations aside, pulling your ass out of a volcano was morally right,” Jim hisses, turning in his seat to face Spock full-on. His eyes are sharp, cold like his words, hurt by Spock’s betrayal. “And I didn't win any points for that.”

“Jim, calm down,” Lee says. It’s a throwaway comment in response to Jim’s rising heart rate and blood pressure. He clicks the tricorder off and switches to a facial EEG.

“I'm not gonna sit here and take ethics lessons from a robot!” Jim’s hands go up in his frustration, and he turns back to level a glare at Lee.

The insult causes Spock’s head to tilt in understanding. It’s kinda… smug? “Reverting to name-calling suggests that you are defensive and therefore find my opinion valid.”

“I wasn't asking for your opinion,” he snips. “Bones, get that thing off my _face_.”

Lee turns off the EEG and places it back in the medkit. His hands are quick, efficient, as they slide over the latches of the kit in a long-practiced habit. Like you, he doesn’t seem keen on hearing Jim and Spock argue for the duration of the flight up. Annoyed, you lean back in the seat again.

“Captain, our mission could start a war with the Klingons and it is, by its very definition, immoral. Perhaps you should take the requisite time to arrive at this conclusion for yourself.”

You open your mouth to tell them that it’s too early for this, but a woman in a grey flight suit you’ve never seen before steps onto the shuttle. You’re able to see the blue detailing on her uniform as she walks up to Jim. Another science officer, or she must be working in the labs, because Lee (and by extension, you) hadn’t gotten any notifications about new medical personnel. Her makeup is nearly impeccable, with dark lips and heavy lashes. “Captain Kirk. Science Officer Wallace. I've been assigned to the Enterprise by Admiral Marcus. These are my transfer orders.” She hands Jim a PADD, presumably with said transfer orders.

“You requested an additional science officer, captain?” Spock’s tone is more hurt than confused, though anyone who doesn’t know him wouldn’t be able to hear a difference. Oh how the turntables…

“I wish I had,” Jim says, taking a moment to give Wallace a once-over, Spock a glare, and to glance at the PADD. “Lieutenant Carol Wallace. Doctorate in applied physics specializing in advanced weaponry.”

“Impressive credentials—” Spock begins, eyeing the new addition suspiciously. He doesn’t seem to understand how Jim is accepting the new transfer with no questions. Honestly, you can’t either.

“Thank you,” she says, inclining her head.

He continues, talking about her as if she isn’t standing directly in front of them. “— But redundant now that I am back aboard the _Enterprise_.”

“And yet,” Jim’s spiteful gaze slides from Wallace to his XO, “The more the merrier. Have a seat, doctor.”

“Thanks.” Wallace sits in the open seat between them, pulling out a PADD different from the one she’d given Jim and tapping at something on the screen. As far as she’s concerned, the men beside her no longer exist for the time being.

Resigned, Lee plants his feet on the floor and settles in. You do the same, but before you close your eyes in an effort to sneak another half hour of sleep, he nudges you. His palm is face up; an offering. Automatically, your hand moves to his, your fingers weaving together. His hands are familiar. Warm, with long fingers, calluses you can map out in a pattern from memory. The gesture serves to comfort you, and your eyes drift closed as your head rests against the seat.

“Shuttle crew, stand by for lift off,” a voice announces.

Jim leans back to look above Carol at Spock, who meets his eyes over the conveniently short woman. “How—?”

“Jim,” Lee says, his voice stern. It’s the same tone he uses for ensigns who get on his nerves in sickbay. “Y/N hasn’t slept two nights in a row because of you. Shut the hell up or I’ll have a hypo in your ass as soon as we get on the ship.”

___

Christine greets you with a warm smile from the nurses’ station, and M’Benga nods at you in greeting as he passes, PADD in hand. The routine of coming back into medbay is similar to pulling on gloves with you doing it so many times. You change into your blues and find your own PADD to work on. It’s quiet without the customary beeps of biobeds surrounding you. There aren’t any patients yet, thankfully. It’s too early for that.

Even though you really want to be by yourself, locked away in Lee’s office for no one to disturb you, you steel yourself and tap at your PADD in the common area with everyone else. There’s a tension headache just behind your eyes and at your temples. No matter how much you pinch the bridge of your nose, it doesn’t abate. The prospect of having to use a hypo isn’t too appealing either. At least you know Geoff wouldn’t give you any grief about it if it came to that point.

Your fingers type out a query to the extranet: _Starfleet Command Attack casualties_. Millions of results come up, all of them saying variations of the same thing. They list a few captains and commanders, detailing their careers and any family. Christopher Pike is listed among them. His list of commendations takes up more of the web page than his colleagues, and then, almost as an afterthought, his wife Una is mentioned. After clicking through a few other articles, you discover that this is the case with most of the reports.

Something sinks inside your chest. Impersonal, clinical, cold. Nothing about the fallen officers, about Pike, as people. Just some important names on a press release. _Could I end up like that, as some faceless officer on a casualty report?_

Lee’s voice pulls you back to the present. Huh. You hadn’t even noticed the doors opening and the others’ calls of greeting. His arm— blue, meaning he must have changed at some point since boarding— is visible just inside your peripheral vision while you’re bent over your PADD, hair curtained over your right shoulder. You’re so out of it that it takes Lee saying your name, your full name, to get your attention.

“Nuh?” The mumbled syllable falls ineloquently from your lips.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong, Y/N?” His mouth pulls into a flat line as his eyes search yours for some explanation.

“… I gave myself a headache,” you say, embarrassed. Partially true, but he doesn’t need to know you were contemplating your own mortality less than a minute ago.

“I think it’s more from the lack of sleep than you giving it to yourself,” he mutters. You nod in acquiescence. _Of course he’d say that, it’s probably right_. His voice is lower, vibrating at a soothing frequency when he speaks now, “I’ll grab you a hypo real quick and then I’m gonna go report to the bridge, okay?”

“I’ll go with you,” you say, pushing off the counter you’d been leaning against. “Just stab me with the heal-y juice and then we’ll go bother Jim.”

“That’s the spirit. Put that medical degree to good use.” His hand finds the small of your back, and he guides you to a biobed. The command to wait goes unspoken, and you take the opportunity to enjoy the beeps that start automatically once you sit down. It’s times like these when you wish modern design hadn’t forced the whole bright-white aesthetic everywhere. While it is appealing, it is not good for people like yourself who get frequent headaches.

Brandishing a hypo, Lee walks over to you quickly, and he opens his mouth to say something but gets interrupted by the whistle of the bridge’s ship-wide intercom. Jim’s voice comes on throughout the ship, echoing throughout hundreds of corridors and rooms. “ _Attention, crew of the_ Enterprise _. As most of you know, Christopher Pike, former captain of this ship and our friend, is dead. The man who killed him has fled our system and is hiding on the Klingon homeworld, somewhere he believes we are unwilling to go. We are on our way there now. Per Admiral Marcus, it is essential that our presence go undetected. Tensions between the Federation and the Klingon Empire have been high. Any provocation could lead to an all-out war. I will personally lead a landing party to an abandoned city on the surface of Kronos where we will capture the fugitive, John Harrison, and return him to Earth so he can face judgment for his actions._ ” He takes a deep breath, audible even over the intercom. “ _All right. Let's go get this son of a bitch. Kirk out._ ”

Lee injects the hypo. Your sigh is audible, and kinda inappropriate, but _god_ it feels so good to have that pressure gone. Tears of relief blur your vision slightly. He rubs your arm soothingly, giving you a moment to appreciate your vanished headache. “Guess that’s our cue.”

___

Spock and Uhura are up when the doors to the bridge open, facing Jim two-on-one. You take stock of your friends with a quick glance around the bridge; Sulu’s at the central console, but a different ensign is next to him. The captain sits in his chair, a hand rubbing across his mouth as he considers the officers in front of him. Drawn, frustrated, impatient. “Spock, I don’t know how I feel about taking you down to Kronos after the behavior you displayed on Nibiru.”

“Captain, my willingness to fulfill my duty and uphold the Prime Directive should not be viewed as a detriment—” Spock says, hands in their customary parade rest. _Someone’s a bit miffed_ , you think before remembering your query concerning a certain Russian.

“Where’s Chekov?” You blurt. It alerts everyone on the bridge to yours and Lee’s presence. Jim’s expression is less than pleased, but you don’t think it’s your fault directly. Spock gives an annoyed Vulcan not-sigh at your outburst.

Jim clears his expression, and, without fully turning to look at you, announces that Scotty quit, so he made Chekov Chief Engineer. Most everyone reacts in some way, either flinching or grimacing. No one dares to ask why. For Scotty to have given up the _Enterprise_ , something must be wrong. So wrong that he would rather resign than submit to it and compromise himself. Considering he’s the one who gave Jim the coordinates that sparked this entire endeavor, you doubt it’s because he doesn’t agree with Jim’s mission. No, something else caused this.

Jim returns to his and Spock’s conversation as if a bomb hadn’t been detonated on the bridge. “It shows me that you don’t value your life.”

“Ashay—” Spock begins to say, eyes widening realization of something and stopping. The rest of whatever he’d been planning on saying dissolves into a puff of air that gets caught in his throat. His eyes are wide, eyebrows hidden under his bangs, like he’s just committed the most egregious of sins. Jim steps back as if physically struck, and Uhura’s eyes widen to dinner plates as she looks between the captain and XO conspicuously. The only thing keeping her from outright asking about Spock’s verbiage is his harsh look, the look that says, _Please, for the love of god do not say anything_. You have the distinct impression that Spock Vulcan-swore (or some other equivalent) at Jim. He just swore at Jim in the goddamn bridge. This must be some kind of fever dream. You _must_ be dreaming.

The _Enterprise_ jerks, causing everyone who isn’t sitting to stagger. Lee’s hand reaches out to steady you on instinct. “Engineering manually dropped us out of warp, sir,” Sulu announces.

Jim strides over to the nearest place with a mic and tunes into Engineering’s frequency. “Mister Chekov, did you _break_ my ship?”

He must be carrying his comm, because the ensign sounds out of breath and some unintelligible shouting can be overheard. “ _Sorry, sir. I don't know vhat happened. The core owerheated. I had to actiwate emergency stop. It must be a coolant leak. I need time to find it. Sorry, keptin._ ”

“Dammit. Mister Sulu, time to our destination.”

He turns back to his console, tapping at a few values before a grimace spreads across his face. “Twenty minutes, sir. That's twenty minutes in enemy space we weren't counting on.”

Twenty minutes. In Klingon space. _Amazing_. You’re all gonna die.

“D-don’t make me regret this.” Jim’s face mirrors Spock’s, expression forcedly neutral with the hint of a blush high on his cheeks and ears. “I’ll meet you both in the shuttle bay. Do any final checks and whatnot before we depart.”

Spock nods jerkily and moves to exit the bridge. After a second’s hesitation you go to follow him. His slightly longer legs give him a bit of a speed advantage that he tries to use in an attempt to get away from you, but, after a bit of persistence, you catch up. The two of you stop in front of a turbolift, and using some tact, you wait until the doors are closed before you start your inquiry.

“Spock, what happened back there? Was it really so bad that you had to cuss Jim out on the—?”

“Doctor L/N…” He types in the order to go to the battlements section of Engineering. He shouldn’t have any business there right now, especially if Scotty quit.

“Spock.” Your gaze is hard, not allowing him to avoid your question. ‘ _Child of ambassadors’ my ass._

His cheeks and the tips of his ears tinge green. _He’s blushing_. “… I did not swear at him.”

“Then what was it?”

He closes his eyes to collect himself before attempting to meet your expectant gaze. “A term of endearment. One that should not have been used as I have lost my privilege to use it.” The next part he mutters more to himself than you. “Much less on the bridge.” He looks at you, allowing an infinitesimally small amount of vulnerability to come through. It’s as much as he can allow himself without compromising his pride. _Please don’t say anything_. The same expression he’d used with Uhura. “It was a lapse in judgment, and it will not happen again. Are you still intent on following me now?”

“Yes.” Now you have to find out why you’re going to Engineering. Hopefully he’ll be more forthcoming with that information.

“Very well. We are going to visit Doctor Marcus and understand why she felt the need to falsify her records and come aboard the _Enterprise_.”

 _Marcus?_ As in the admiral? The ambiguity makes you scrunch your nose. Communication is so difficult, especially with Spock. Fatigue digs its claws into your shoulders. The ache forces you to grit your teeth.

The doors to the lift open, revealing an area bustling with red and metal. Shapes that you can barely recognize as photon torpedoes are being carried by various machines. Spock steps out with purpose, not even waiting for you to catch up. You can barely see your intended target on a deck at least thirty yards away. She’s scanning one of the torpedoes with a tricorder, too focused on what she’s doing to know that she’s about to be accosted by a nosy Vulcan.

Spock, kind, perceptive Spock, stops abruptly and faces you. The action nearly has you bump into him. “Please do not be offended, but I think it would be best that you stay several feet back while I question the lieutenant.” Guess he doesn’t mean to intimidate her. You nod, more out of reflex than genuine agreement, and he nods in farewell before going up to Wallace.

She jumps when she sees him. Her tricorder gets tucked away quickly. Totally not suspicious at all. “Mister Spock. You startled me.”

“What are you doing, Doctor?” _Never one to beat around the bush, are you, Spock?_

“Verifying that the torpedo's internal—” She replies with a gesture to the weapon.

“You misunderstand. What are you doing aboard this ship? There is no record of you being assigned to the _Enterprise_.” Your eyes widen. _Didn’t Jim look at her transfer orders?_ No, no. He merely glanced at them, too preoccupied by Spock to give the PADD in his hand any real attention. Thank god Spock’s jealousy made him dig further into the issue. But then who _is_ she?

An awkward smile cracks her expression, her façade failing. She didn’t expect Spock to question Jim’s acceptance. Her mistake, because Spock constantly questions Jim. “Really? That must be some sort of mistake.”

“My conclusion as well, Doctor Marcus.” _Jesus Spock, calm down._ “Except that you have lied about your identity. Wallace is the surname of your mother. I can only assume the admiral is your father.” _Okay, so she’s hiding something…?_

Her voice dips low, worried, anxious, scared to be discovered. “Mister Spock. I'm aware that I have no right to ask this of you. But please, he can’t know I'm here.”

Spock’s eyebrows quirk, and he makes to ask the obvious, but gets interrupted by his comm whistling. “Spock.”

“ _Where are you? It’s time to go!_ ” Jim’s pissed-off voice rings loud and clear over the frequency.

“Understood, captain. I will arrive presently. Spock out.” He flicks the comm closed. “Doctor Marcus.” He nods to her before calling over to you, “Doctor L/N, report to Doctor McCoy.”

 _Well, it’s better than him outright saying ‘go to the bridge’._ “Yes sir.”

___

Sulu is sitting in the captain’s chair when you walk onto the bridge with what you can only imagine is steely resolve on his face. There’s a story behind that. Lee will probably tell you if and when the opportunity arises. “Attention, John Harrison. This is Captain Hikaru Sulu of the _U.S.S. Enterprise_. A shuttle of highly trained officers is on its way to your location. If you do not surrender to them immediately, I will unleash the entire payload of advanced long-range torpedoes currently locked onto your location. You have two minutes to confirm your compliance. Refusal to do so will result in your obliteration. If you test me, you will fail.”

 _Jesus_. You wouldn’t wanna be on the other end of that speech. Lee leans down and murmurs something into his ear before turning and seeing you. His shoulders are pulled tight, his mouth the same. “So what happened with the green one?”

“Oh my god, Lee that’s so rude,” you say in mock offense. He rolls his eyes, leaning close when you beckon him to do so, “I can’t talk about it on the bridge. Office.” You pull back and resume your normal speaking voice. “What’d I miss?”

“The captain left our Mister Sulu in charge of the conn and made him bluff,” Lee shakes his head disbelievingly, and you can see something coiled in him, something tired and angry that doesn’t want to be here. Something that wishes the two of you hadn’t woken up this morning to this bullshit. “With the torpedoes full of who-knows-what.”

“Oh, goo—” One of the consoles on the bridge gives a high distressed beep. Sulu’s fingers curl around the arms of the chair. “Never mind.”

“What happened? Where's their signal?” He barks. Lee shares a concerned look with you. Yeah. Really wishing you hadn’t been woken up this morning.

The comms tech pushes at a whole array of buttons at her station, and when she responds, you have a feeling that the calm in her voice is forced. Well, no one would want to be responsible for losing the captain. “It cut out. I'm working to get them back.”

Lee starts muttering, quiet enough for only you to hear, pushing a hand against his mouth as an aborted effort to stop himself. It ends up looking like he’s trying to rub any stubble off his face. You’re about thirty seconds away from pulling out your hair, so you’re in no position to judge. “Why is it that every time we try to do some—?”

“ _Keptin! Keptin!_ ” Chekov’s voice cuts in over the Engineering frequency. “ _I’we identified the issue vith the varp core! It had malfunctions vith—_ ”

Sulu puts a hand over his face. “Pavel, the captain isn’t here and neither is Spock. You know I don’t understand your engineering jargon. Nor do I care to,” he adds. He stops for a moment, as if an idea struck him. “Actually, you wouldn’t have any suggestions for reestablishing a connection to the trader-ship we sent out, would you?”

As if in synchronized practice, you and Lee roll your eyes heavenwards. Hopefully Jim isn’t in mortal peril right now.

“ _Ay, Hikaru, I’m not a comms tech!_ ” There’s a pause, and you can picture the skinny kid scratching his head, gangly arm at an awkward angle in a red shirt that isn’t even broken-in yet. “ _Ah… Other than rebooting the connection and fiddling with the frequencies, I hawe no idea._ ”

The top of your head feels like it’ll pop off if you don’t do something; you can’t just stand here, waiting, watching from a useless viewport. Your nails bite into your palms to keep your voice from rising into a hysterical shriek. As it is, your voice remains in its lower register. “Jim could actually be in trouble, and you two are bickering over the comms?”

The acting captain turns around to give you lip, but the comms tech interrupts his sass tirade, “Sir, the signal is back on.”

“Any idea what cut the signal originally?”

“No, sir.”

Sulu’s hand moves along the left arm of the chair, pressing a button and leaning back. “ _Enterprise_ to shuttle,” he says.

“ _This is Commander Spock. We are en route to the Enterprise with Harrison in custody._ ” There’s a pause, and you hear someone click a few buttons on their end. “ _Estimated arrival time seven point two three minutes._ ”

“Was anyone injured?” You ask. For their signal to have cut out suddenly, you can guess that there was some amount of conflict involved. There’s no sense of urgency (Well, at least like anyone’s in mortal peril, anyway), so chances are they made their way out relatively unscathed.

“ _Just cuts and bruises, Y/N. Nothing you need to worry about._ ” It’s Jim’s voice this time, and although he sounds exhausted, there isn’t an edge to his voice that belies his statement. “ _We’ll be there soon. Kirk out._ ”

“I’m gonna go to medbay to get a post-mission kit,” Lee says, turning to exit the bridge. You’re still staring out the viewport, and Lee has to get your attention by saying your name. After clearing your head via physical shaking, you follow him out. In the empty corridor, you feel some of the tension leave as he’s able to talk to you. His stride matches yours. “You’re real out of it today.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” you mutter. To relive some of the pressure behind your eyes, you force the heels of your hands into their sockets. Damn, even your teeth hurt. “Today just hasn’t been good. My birthday’s supposed to be on a Friday _next_ year. So all this bad luck is fucking early.”

“Apparently Jim caught the bad guy, so I think we’re off the hook,” he says somewhat unconvincingly. At least it’s not forced optimism.

A knot in your stomach doesn’t jive with his words, though. Other than the comms cutting out, this whole ordeal has gone a bit too smoothly. For Harrison to be caught with little incident after dragging the _Enterprise_ all the way out to Klingon space doesn’t sit right with you. Call it intuition but— “Lee, I feel like something bad is gonna happen.”

“For both our sakes, I hope this is one of the few times you’re wrong.” He cards a hand though his hair, disheveling it just a bit more and leaving a few pieces sticking up at ridiculous angles. You’ll fix it in the lift, or at least tell him to. He notices your lingering gaze for all of a second until something else comes to him. “What happened with Spock?”

“Oh my god… okay, so you know how it seemed like he cussed Jim out on the bridge?”

He nods, holding the door of the lift open with his arm for you before stepping in himself. “Yeah.”

You wait until the doors slide shut, taking your place next to him.

“Hold on this has been bothering me,” you say, reaching up to comb your fingers through his unruly hair in an attempt to fix it. He obliges you and stands still, even lowering his head a bit so you don’t have to stretch all that much. Once it looks decent, you lower your arms and continue what you were saying, taking a step back so you’re not on top of him. “Apparently it was a Vulcan term of _endearment_.” Your smile is one part ‘ _aw, cute_ ’ and two parts ‘ _can you believe those idiots_ ’.

Lee’s eyes widen, a smile curling his lips to mirror yours. His face screams, _Gossip!_ “Shut the hell up.”

“Yeah, and the reason he was so worked up about it was because he’d, quote un-quote, ‘lost his privilege to use it’.” Your mind scrambles for something else to keep that smile on Lee’s face, the image making you feel something that isn’t tired or angry for the first time in about twelve hours. “Oh! Also, do you remember the random doctor that got transferred?”

“Wallace?” He asks. The doors open, and the two of you walk out while continuing your conversation.

“Yeah— that’s not her real name. It’s Marcus, as in Admiral Marcus’s daughter.” You pull on his sleeve when you’re about twenty feet from the medbay. This isn’t information that should just be slung around by everyone. You don’t know if Spock has even told Jim yet. The pitch of your voice dips, “I know. For whatever reason, she’s still super secretive about what’s in those torpedoes, and she does _not_ want her dad to know she’s aboard—”

Someone’s comm— Lee’s you realize— whistles. He looks at the device as if it has personally offended him before shaking his head in resignation and flipping it open. “Mc—”

“ _Bones, Y/N, meet me in the brig_.” Politeness is not a goal today for Jim, you realize. Lovely.

“Be right there.” You hope Jim can’t hear his eye rolling over the forced sweetness. Lee immediately begins muttering once the frequency cuts, asking if _Starfleet taught him any manners in all those goddamn diplomacy courses_.

“Calm down, tough guy. I’ll grab the kit and inform the staff that the mission was successful.”

___

After Jim gives a bare-bones explanation of what happened on Kronos, Lee’s expression is one of ice.

“He surrendered just like that? Spock says a number and he tosses his gun aside?” He asks, strides long to keep up with Jim, who seems intent on getting to the brig as quickly as possible.

Jim absentmindedly rubs at one of his wrists and winces. There’s a quick glance he tosses at Lee after he does, as if he hopes his vigilant CMO didn’t notice. Spock may or may not have seen it, but if he does, he keeps silent. With all the other cuts and bruises on his face, you wonder how much he left out of his retelling. “Yeah. After taking out a squad of Klingons single-handedly. I want to know how he did that.”

You all round the corner, and Lee, loud enough to be heard, says, “Sounds like we have a superman on board.”

Officers man consoles at different parts of the brig, their red shirts starkly contrasting against the white and glass of the cells surrounding them. You count four rooms, each separated from the center of the room by a large pane of impenetrable glass. On each pane are one to two small points of silver: points that act as small openings should the crew need to access the prisoner without opening the cell. Useful for situations like yours.

John Harrison occupies one of said cells, the contempt emanating from him so potent that it ekes out into the main room.

The first thing you notice about Harrison is his lack of injury. Hair neat, shirtsleeves rolled up, he looks like he’s just been pulled from a relaxing day at home instead of a firefight where he killed at least ten hostiles. There’s no indication that he’s anything more; no defining features that would hallmark mixed blood, but he carries himself in a way that suggests otherwise. Haughty, sneering down at everyone, pacing around like he’s controlling the situation from inside his cell.

Disgust curls cold in your stomach, and you have to remind your hands to be gentle as you search through the kit for the auto-ven. _As soon as you get the blood, you can leave._ Tool in hand, you close the kit and begin moving towards the cell. Lee holds a hand out to take the device from you. Digging your heels in, you try not to appear too insubordinate in front of the enemy and your captain. Regardless, it’s not Lee’s place to keep you from doing your job out of some (albeit probably from a good place) urge to protect you. _Lee_ , you say with a flat stare, your lips pressed into an exasperated line, _he’s literally behind a wall_.

A muscle in his jaw twitches, but he puts his and down and doesn’t try to stop you again. “Put your arm through the hole so she can take a blood sample.”

You summon the opening, the silver ring small, maybe an inch and a half in diameter. Harrison gives you a cursory glance as you splay your fingers to widen it just enough so that it’s around the size of his forearm. Silence echoes throughout the brig. Not even the tap of his boots against the floor of the cell can be heard. With his expression, you would’ve expected his boots to thud against the metal, to try and intimidate you by stirring the air.

 _No_ , you realize. _This is the man who had someone blow up a building_ for _him and tried to sneak out of the atmosphere undetected after the fact._ He’s an oil slick.

The venipuncture device feels solid in your hand, the weight reminding you of your task. You have a job to do. Thinking can come later when you don’t have to focus as much. Harrison sticks his arm through the hole you created, forearm up and fist clenched to make the vessels pop out. His skin is hot when you palpate for a vein, feverish even. You try not to let your surprise show, especially since your poorly-circulated hands must feel like ice on his skin (Lee usually runs hot, and he’s complained about your cold hands before).

His gaze is perfunctory as he watches your movements, not even hissing as the needle sticks him. Red begins to climb up the auto-ven. Well, he still looks human. “Why aren't we moving, captain? An unexpected malfunction? Perhaps in your warp core, conveniently stranding you on the edge of Klingon space?”

You stop watching the blood fill the tube, your eyes narrowed to scrutinize his words. The glass reflects your confused expression back at you. “How the hell do you know that?” Your voice sounds higher than you’d hoped it would. Harrison’s focus remains on Jim, poised and waiting for a similar reaction from the captain.

“Y/N,” Jim and Lee warn simultaneously.

“I think you'd find my insight valuable, captain,” Harrison says, his words suggesting smugness though is expression remains decidedly neutral. The click of the needle retracting informs you that the blood sample had finished being collected. Without appearing too callous, you quickly snatch your hands and the auto-ven away from his arm. He seems to relish in your discomfort and takes his time retracting his arm. Quickly, you shrink the circle and swipe it somewhere else on the glass.

Just touching him made your skin crawl. He may walk, talk, and even bleed like a man, but he feels _wrong_.

“Good?” Jim asks. His tone tells you he doesn’t just mean the blood.

Your gaze drops to the vial in your hands, fingers clasped much tighter than you expected around it. _Grip looser._ Trying to convince yourself as much as him, you nod. “Yeah. I’m gonna go mess with this now.”

The sound of Jim and Spock’s conversation follows you out of the room, Lee’s footsteps just behind that.

You’re thankful that the vial is metal, because you’re white-knuckling it to keep yourself from shaking. Dark clouds fill your head, products of the events for this whole ordeal. First Nibiru. Then Jim and Spock’s demotions. London, the attack, being shocked awake at midnight, having to run out into the black in the early morning, Doctor Wallace (whose name ended up being Marcus) sneaking aboard, Scotty quitting, the whole hassle of capturing Harrison and his convenient surrender, the guy’s entire demeanor, Lee trying to ‘protect’ you from your job— just— _FUCK_ — your grip on the specimen tightens by a faction, your blood pressure spiking as you refrain from shrieking in frustration at it all.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Lee’s standing in front of you, hazel eyes sharp and imploring. _When did I stop walking?_

It takes you a second to process what he asked, but you manage to piece it together from the look on his face. You gnaw on your bottom lip and consider your words, settling for, “I just need today to be over.”

“I hear ya,” he says, voice gentler than before, if that’s even possible. “C’mon. We gotta go analyze this lunatic’s blood.”

To keep your hands busy, you begin meticulously pushing your cuticles back while you walk. You catch him observing you when you stop to call the turbolift. “I don’t know if I should even bother walking to quarters for a nap or if I should just settle on the couch in the office while the samples run.”

The doors open and you step inside. When your eyes meet his, a pang of sympathy runs you through. He is just as tired as you; the circles under his eyes, the tight press of his lips, the tension radiating off his shoulders— all of it serves as a testament to this fact. There’s a beat before you give in and step into his space, placing your head against his chest. Warm arms encircle you, not squeezing, but resting and providing a comfortable weight about your torso.

Your shared breaths, his heartbeat, and the ever-present low hum of the ship are all you can hear in the blessed silence.

The sound of the doors sliding open has you opening your eyes. Huh. You didn’t realize you’d gotten so comfortable. Cool air touches the skin where Lee’s arms had been and you give an involuntary shiver. A couple of nurses pass by, en route to medical, but they don’t even look over from their conversation to pay you any mind.

“Y/N, you go to the room. I’ll get the samples ready for lab and meet you there,” he says, holding his hand out for the vial.

You take a half step forward, nearly giving it to him. It would be at least a twenty minute process, getting the requisition filled along with divvying the thing up into aliquots and then having to go down to the biology labs. Not to mention the trek to come back… “Lee, you really don’t have to.”

He waves a hand. “It’s your birthday. Let me do something for you.”

“I love you,” you sigh, leaning forward to give him a kiss and the blood.

He obliges you and leans down to meet your lips. “Love you, too.”

“See you in a bit,” you say, stepping back to punch in the request for Deck Nine.

“Yeah.”

The doors close, and now you’re by yourself for the first time in at least four hours. You manage not to slam to the ground like you want to. Instead, you walk until your head touches the back panel of the lift, and close your eyes.

 _Bed_ , you think as you walk down the corridor, as your fingers stumble across the pin-pad, as you shuck your boots. Distantly, you hear a voice that you know is your own call for the lights to dim to fifteen percent. Everything gets cast into shades of dark grey that you barely manage to navigate. The bed is neat— housekeeping being nice before departure— and so, so inviting. However, through the reserves of your self-control, you manage to not simply flop onto the bed like an animal. You yank the blanket back roughly, snag an extra pillow and curl around it, and pull it back over yourself.

Lee knows to add your comm frequency to the lab results (and he’ll call you if he needs anything), so you begin to drift without any real apprehension to impede you.

A high whistle breaks the stillness within forty-five seconds. It’s your comm, shrill with someone wishing to talk to you. The overwhelming urge to cry slams into you like a truck.

 _No, no, no, no, no, no, no…_ “L/N.”

“ _Y/N, you took some rudimentary Engineering classes, right?_ ”

“Jim, I just closed my goddamn eyes—” You stop your complaint and take calming a breath. _You cannot curse out the captain._ “No, I did not. Why?”

“ _Doctor Marcus needs to crack open a torpedo, and we need someone with steady hands_.”

“Well, if she can talk me through it, I’m sure I can figure it out.” _Do they even know what the fuck is in those things? Are they just gonna blow up? Well, I guess that’s why they need steady hands._ They need someone who won’t shake or jerk out of nervousness. Otherwise, boom.

“ _Great. Meet her in shuttle bay ASAP_.”

Goddammit.

___

You find the shuttle and the little doctor next to the door, inspecting the cuff of the flight suit that matches yours. You’d had to change because the short blue uniform dress would be impractical for a labor-intense mission like this one. Pants feel so good right now.

As you walk over, you consider the doctor. She doesn’t look mean, even if she lied to both of the highest ranked officers on board. But _you_ don’t know her personally. Might as well be polite. “I’m Doctor L/N. Call me Y/N.”

“Doctor Marcus. Call me Carol,” she says, taking your offered hand. “You were with Spock earlier.”

“Yeah. I needed to talk to him about something.” You keep your expression neutral. Friendly, but still, you don’t know her. She lied to you before, so there isn’t any reason she should know anything about your motives, either. Keep it vague.

She nods and climbs the steps of the shuttle, expecting you to follow her. The torpedo is already on the planetoid’s surface, she informs you, and the only things you’re taking are the supplies to crack it open and disarm it. Lovely. The coordinates for the torpedo’s location are already programmed into the console, and the shuttle should auto-pilot for the entire journey.

“Cool, cool.” You nod. “So I just wanna get one big question out of the way before we start: Why are we risking life and limb for these fucking things?”

“Because anyone we’ve tried to talk to hasn’t given us anything to work with,” she replies, annoyed with the situation as much as anyone else.

“Awesome,” you mutter, turning the shuttle on. It rumbles to life and departs the _Enterprise’s_ shuttle bay with relative ease. You flip open your comm and tune into the bridge’s frequency. “Jim, it’s me. We just took off and should arrive in about three minutes.”

“ _Y/N, thanks for helping out. Doctor Marcus asked for the steadiest hands on the ship. In the tie between you and Bones, I knew you wouldn’t lecture me_.”

“When I dreamed of being stranded on a planet, it wasn’t with life-or-death stakes,” you say to no one in particular. In those idle fantasies it would just be you and Lee and the planet would be conveniently suited for a vacation. But you don’t want to be rude to the woman next to you and flat out say, _Well, I didn’t think I’d be stranded on a planet with you._

“ _Why would you dream about being stranded on a plan—?”_ Jim stops talking for some reason. You can hear someone walking.

“ _Jim, where is she?_ ” It’s Lee’s voice, low and dangerous. Oh god, you hadn’t told him.

There’s a click on Jim’s end, probably an attempt to turn off the mic. “ _I sent her down with Doctor Marcus. Harrison said—_ ”

“ _Are you out of your corn-fed mind?_ ” He growls, “ _You're not actually going to listen to this guy? He killed Pike. He almost killed you. And now you think it's a good idea to pop open a torpedo because he dared you to_.”

“ _Why did he save our lives, Bones?_ ” Jim’s tone is careful, trying to keep his friend from reacting too explosively on the bridge. Still, what could the prisoner have possibly said that was so convincing? Jim’s vulnerability is clouding his judgment.

“ _The doctor does have a point, captain,_ ” Spock joins in.

“ _Don't agree with me, Spock. It makes me very uncomfortable._ ” You roll your eyes. Fucking five year olds, the three of them. Carol shoots you a glance, keeping silent but asking, _Is this how they always act?_ You nod.

“ _Perhaps you, too, should learn to govern your emotions, doctor. In this situation, logic dictates_ —”

Lee cuts him off. “ _Logic? Oh my god! There's a maniac trying to make us blow ourselves up and you talk about—_ ”

“ _That's not it,_ ” Jim says, nipping the argument in the bud. “ _I don't know why he surrendered, but that's not it. Look, we're going to open a torpedo_.”

“ _But Jim, without Scotty on board, who exactly is qualified to…? You son of a bitch. That’s where you sent her_.” You can imagine him, jaw clenched, hands forming fists at his sides. There’s nothing he can do right now, and the lack of control, the inability to to protect you should anything happen, infuriates him.

“ _They need steady hands, and when I commed her, she agreed_ ,” Jim says it as if it’s the simplest thing in the world, the easiest explanation. Like there isn’t a chance you might die. Simple mission. As if.

Lee isn’t satisfied. Quite the opposite in fact, he seems to be impassioned by this. His boots thump heavily as he walks up to Jim. “A _nd what if the damned thing blows up? She’s gonna do everything right, but what if it’s out of either of their control? Not only are you sacrificing one of your best doctors, you are sacrificing a friend, the woman I love—_ ”

A chill spills down your spine at the venom in his voice; you touch down on the planetoid’s surface. “Shuttle standing by.” The words catch in your throat.

There’s a pause, and you can only assume it’s because Jim realized he pressed something that wasn’t his mute button. “ _Okay. Well, I guess this goes without saying now, but good luck and do your best. We all want you both back safe and unharmed_.”

“Easy peasy,” you mutter. Carol snorts and gets up. “Okay, so what do you need me for specifically?”

“To understand how powerful these weapons are, we need to open the warhead.” She has a PADD balanced in one hand and is tapping at a keypad on top of the torpedo with the other. “To do that, we need to access the fuel compartment.” There’s a beep followed by a hiss, and then one of the panels of the the explosive slides, revealing what you assume is the intended wiring. “Unfortunately for us, the warheads on these weapons are live.”

As long as the torpedo sits in one place, how dangerous it is isn’t an issue. “Once I had to perform an emergency C-section on a pregnant Gorn. Octuplets. And let me tell you, those little assholes bite. I think I can work some magic on your missile.”

“Right… Y/N, there's a bundle of fiber optic cables against the inner casing,” she tells you while still consulting her PADD. “You'll need to cut the twenty-third wire down. Whatever you do, do _not_ touch anything else. Do you understand?”

“Well, there go my plans.”

She ignores you. (Rightly so.) “On my signal. I'm rerouting the detonation processor. Are you ready?”

“And raring,” you say with as little enthusiasm as is physically possible, getting on your knees next to the open panel. The gravel digs through the fabric of the uniform, pressing little indentations into your skin. You poise your fingers near the circle of wiring to get this over with as quickly as you can.

She presses a button, and you don’t have any idea what it’s meant for, but the panel that had previously slid away now moves to clamp over your arm. Panic floods through your veins. You can’t move. A sharp jab of pain hits you a second later. “ _Ow!_ Shit—!”

Sulu’s voice comes over your comm, “ _Sir, the torpedo just armed itself._ ”

Your eyes widen, and you futilely try to tug your arm out of the deathtrap. “What? What happened? I can’t get my arm out. Carol—?”

“ _Target their signal. Beam them back right now,_ ” Jim nearly shouts.

“ _The transporter cannot differentiate between Doctor L/N and the torpedo. We cannot beam back one without the other,”_ Spock informs.

“Oh my Jesus I’m gonna die,” you breathe, so quiet that you barely hear yourself say it. Your skin looks sickly contrasting against the dark grey of the planetoid’s soil. The color has probably left your face. Well, at least you’re ready to look the part of a corpse. You’re nothing if not prepared. A bark of laughter escapes you at the thought.

“ _Doctor Marcus, can you disarm it?_ ” Jim asks. Your heartbeat is in your ears along with the quick, successive beeps of Carol’s work.

“I’m trying, I’m trying! If you could all just shut up for—” She frantically pushes at an array of buttons you can’t see. There’s a hiss, and something connects with the soil. Another panel, it sounds like.

The timer in front of you drops below twenty seconds. She’ll die too if she doesn’t leave soon. This whole thing can’t be a total loss. “Jim, just send her back,” you say with as much authority as you can muster.

Carol shakes her head vehemently. “No! If you beam me back, she dies! Just let me do it! I almost got it—”

“Ten, nine, eight...” _My parents don’t even know I’m gone. I’m gonna die and my mom won’t know— she won’t even get me shipped back home in a box. There might not even be pieces to recover…_

“ _Standing by to transport Doctor Marcus on your command, sir_ ,” Sulu announces.

“Lee, I love you,” you whisper, eyes trained on the countdown for your death. At least your last direct words to him were those. You tense in preparation for the blast.

He isn’t having it. “ _No, don’t say that_.”

“Three…” It’s a breath at best.

“Shit!” She gives up on trying to count her way down a series of wires and just reaches in there and rips the whole set out. You fall back as the grip that was previously keeping you in place suddenly gives way. The gravel tangles in your hair, and you’re left to stare at the milky grey of the planetoid’s atmosphere while ragged breaths saw in and out of you. Your head snaps up as she starts fiddling with something else immediately afterwards.

 _2.57 seconds_ , the timer reads. It is no longer counting down. _Carol did it_. You’re not dead.

“ _Deactivation successful, captain_.” Spock confirms your thought. Brushing dust off your uniform, you stand and join her to see whatever it is she’s working with. The torpedo’s innards make you gasp.

“ _Y/N, are you alright?_ ” Jim asks, slightly out of breath. The words fly over your head.

“ _Y/N! For the love of god—_ ” Lee’s voice is desperate after you don’t respond.

Your hands trace along the metal’s smooth edges, not comprehending, not believing, what you’re seeing. “Holy shit, guys. You’re gonna wanna see this.”

A man lies inside. Not dead, but sleeping. The cryogenic tube blinks to life at the interaction.

“ _Beam them all up. Including the torpedo_ ,” Jim orders.

The warm yellow glow of the transporter surrounds the three of you, and you experience the particular feeling of being pulled apart molecule by molecule and then pieced together again.

Lee is there when you re-materialize, out of breath from running all the way down to Engineering. His arms encompass you immediately, his hands checking to make sure you’re all here and not some figment of his imagination or other. You tilt your head to rest it against his shoulder, and one of his hands comes to cup the back of your head. His cradling you has you shaking, the whole ordeal crashing into you.

“Are you okay? I heard you say your arm was caught. Do you want me to look at it?” He leans back to give you another once-over, his eyes skipping around your disheveled uniform and checking, triple checking to see if you’re really, truly okay. A minute shake of your head and then he’s pulling you against him a second time. His chest vibrates with his words. “Please, Y/N, never do that again.”

“Okay.” It comes out more as a croak than as proper sound, but he seems to take it as it is.

“We’re gonna do a quick scan on you in medbay because I ran down here straight from the bridge,” he murmurs, running his hands down both of your arms to check for hidden injuries. _Doctor through and through_. “And then we’re gonna tackle whatever’s in this torpedo.”

“Actually, it’s more like _who_ ever is in the torpedo,” you say, brain-to-mouth filter slightly malfunctioning because of your near death experience.

“What?” He looks around you to glance at the once-weapon. The pressure on the tops of your arms increases by a fraction as he yanks you towards him, expecting the guy inside the cryo tube to magically thaw and attack you guys. A beat passes before you process what you said and his reaction.

“We’ll explain in medbay,” you promise, “I just— I nearly died in these. I have to change.” It’s barely a justification, but you hope he understands.

Lee simply nods, taking in your choppy words and wide eyes and slight disorientation. “Whatever you need, sweetheart.”

___

Once you change into some scrubs (comfort is the object now, and the uniform dress isn’t gonna cut it), you and Carol start poking at the cryo tube. Lee runs a tricorder behind you both at different points to make sure nothing was bruised, scraped, broken, or infected on the planetoid. Judging by the overall lack of distressed grumbling, you say you’re both in the clear.

Jim comes in later, Spock in tow, and immediately starts asking questions. “What’ve we got?”

“It's really cool, actually. This fuel container's been removed from the torpedo and retrofitted to hide this cryo tube,” Carol explains. You’d never seen the original specs for the torpedoes, so you wouldn’t know any of the modifications that would need to be made to house something like a cryo tube. Even with your limited knowledge, you know that it’s no small thing to huff at.

“Is he alive?” Jim asks, taking a peek through the glass to see the human popsicle.

“He's alive,” you confirm. “But if we try to revive him without the proper sequencing, it could kill him. This technology's beyond me.” Lee signals his similar lack of knowledge by nodding.

“How advanced, doctor?” Spock asks, eyebrows quirked. Brainiac probably thinks he can quick-engineer his way to the future.

“It's not advanced,” Lee says, stepping up and running his fingers across the cool metal. “This cryo tube is _ancient_.” 

“We haven't needed to freeze anyone since we developed warp capability,” you clarify, looking between the XO and captain. “Which explains the most interesting thing about our friend here.” Looking through the frosted window, you trace the specimen’s fair features. He doesn’t look more than thirty. “He's three hundred years old.”

“What the hell?” Jim’s brow furrows until a light bulb goes off above his head. “He knew.”

“Who knew, Jim?” Lee asks, a corner of his mouth already pulling down. He has yet to go more than three feet from you since you’ve come back.

“Harrison. Spock, c’mon.” Like that, Jim leaves medbay as quickly as he came.

Carol continues to consult with several PADDs and screens over the missile-turned-cryo-tube. Lee gets your attention by touching your arm and then mouths, _Office_.

“Carol, we have to do some clinical review of patient charts right now in the office,” you say, already following Lee. “Knock or comm if you need us.”

“’Kay,” she murmurs distractedly. She obviously didn’t listen to what you’d said.

He calls for the lights to dim to fifteen percent. Once the door is firmly shut behind you, Lee plops down on the couch and beckons you over. You go, feet dragging against the dense carpet in long, slow strokes, and all but collapse onto him. His nose buries in your hair, made easy with how you’re straddling his lap, and you feel how he inhales the scent of your honey shampoo, of sweat, of the planetoid’s chalky gravel.

The pressure of words builds up behind your lips from deep in your chest; they tempt you to tell him about what happened, how scared you were, what you’d heard in his and Jim’s argument— but you don’t. Instead, you ask him if Harrison’s labs came back yet.

He doesn’t move his head; his mouth moves against your hair when he answers. “I haven’t looked at ‘em yet, but yeah.”

“You think he’s human?” You pull away and balance on his thighs to trace along his features— the line between his eyebrows, the slope of his nose.

“Morally speaking, for him do have done all those awful things to all those people: no. From a biological standpoint: I have no reason to believe otherwise. But I haven’t checked yet, so who knows.”

“Something isn’t right with him,” you state. Unease pools in your gut at the memory of taking Harrison’s blood. It makes you shift off of Lee.

“Why ask me if you already have opinions?” He teases, misinterpreting your getting off him as eagerness to see the results and prove you’re right.

“Just give me a PADD, Leonard,” you grumble, reaching over for one petulantly. Curling a leg under yourself at one end of the couch, you click through the recently synced files until you find them. The values force you to blink so you can make sure you’re not reading them wrong. _No normal person’s platelet count should be that high and them not have stroked out or had some kind of embolism._ The numbers aren’t changing, and the only explanation is that— “These readings are wrong.”

Lee’s chin comes to rest on your shoulder, his eyes scanning the screen along with you. After a moment, he says, “I don’t think they’re wrong, but they sure are a bit fucked from the usual.”

“Did you see the note about his platelets being regenerative?” You whisper, skipping down the report. If the effects of such things are transmissible, then it could have an infinite amount of therapeutic indications. A small chemical readout appears in their description.

“Yeah—”

 _It isn’t even a question_. “We need to get more and test it.”

“Get _more_? And _test_ it? On what, Y/N? We don’t know what makes it like that.” The weight on your shoulder disappears when Lee moves his head. The hazel in his eyes is sharp, like you’re suggesting murder and not a possible cure for any number of ailments. “It could damage a human host!”

“Jesus, Lee, I didn’t say we’d use it on a humanoid right off the bat,” you say, holding the PADD closer to yourself as if to protect it from his reaction. “We could use a— a— a tribble ore something.”

“A tribble?” His voice sounds as flat as the look he levels at you, his face highlighted by the same blue light of the screen. Okay… so you might be sounding a bit nuts.

“Just to see if it has any effects,” you clarify. “Ensign Urie brought in a dead one earlier. If the platelets regenerate at such a rapid rate, maybe it has an impact on necrotic tissue…?”

He rakes a hands through his hair, eyes averting and his mouth pulling to the side. His hesitation tells you the truth— it’s not because he doesn’t agree with your medical opinion. Exhaustion creeps into his voice through each word that comes with his next flimsy excuse. “Y/N, I don’t know if we should go back down to the brig for even a vial more of this lunatic’s—”

A whistle cuts him off, followed by, “ _Brig to sickbay_.”

Lee stands, leaving you alone on the couch, and walks over to the comm-port where the voice came from, waiting for the other bullshit that will inevitably get thrown onto his plate. It’s familiar territory by now.

“— Doctor McCoy speaking.” Any tiredness that had managed to seep into his voice before gets neatly tucked away with the reply. It’s such an ingrained habit, you barely realize he does it. The fact that you recognize it has your eyes widening.

“ _Captain Kirk ordered the prisoner Khan, formerly known as John Harrison, to be escorted to sickbay. Expect six security officers along with him_.”

His hand goes to pinch the bridge of his nose. The room rings with the tension reverberating off the tight line of his shoulders. The façade of composure doesn’t slip, even though he looks about three seconds from punching a hole through a wall. “We’ll make the necessary preparations, thank you.”

“… No travel necessary, now,” you mutter, more for your own benefit than to rub it in his face.

“’S not funny,” Lee growls. The blue of his uniform pulls along his broad shoulders while he clenches his hands into fists, the movement pulling from the pent-up frustration throughout his person.

“I promise I’m not laughing,” you sigh, tilting your head back as if asking the ceiling for help and then standing as well. The pops of your joints are loud in the quiet of the room. “It just means that slimy bastard did something that a slimy bastard would so he could get out of the brig.”

“Good choice of words there,” he comments from by the door.

You stick your tongue out petulantly and finish cracking your joints. “Shut up. You can’t be mean to me _on my birthday_.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he says, giving your shoulders a squeeze as while he lets you past. The clinical white of the medbay has you squinting after being in the darkness of the office for so long.

A set of boots _thunk_ -ing through the hallway pulls your attention to the doors, and in walks the man at the core of all this bullshit, protected by a squad of redshirts. He takes stock of the room, noting the biobeds lining the walls, the nurses’ station, your exiting the office. Leaning around one of his guards, he calls, “Hello, doctors.”

“Put him in bed four,” Lee says to the guards, ignoring Khan’s greeting.

“I’ll get a chart started,” you murmur, grabbing the PADD for his respective biobed. You try to keep your breaths even and your composure from unwinding. This asshole doesn’t need anything he could construe as weakness or his victory. He’s sitting, legs elegantly folded while he rests on the biobed, the other redshirts awkwardly standing around it. You kinda want to to punch him to get the almost-smirk off his face, but you have a feeling it wouldn’t be very effective and it’s not the most professional thing to do. As it is, you place the chart on the bed next to him and grab a tricorder.

“Hello, Y/N.”

You don’t even bother to correct him. At least he doesn’t use Lee’s name for you. “Arm, please.”

The biobed syncs with the PADD, so you grab an auto-ven and stab him with it. Again, not even a flinch from him. Sparing a glance from the filling tube, you observe his vitals. _Heart rate 20 bpm, respirations 10 rpm, BP 100/40 mmHg, Temperature 104.3 degrees Fahrenheit._

“Why are your vitals so weird?”

“That’s not a very nice thing to ask a patient,” he says, mock offense coloring his words.

The needle retracts, and you snatch the vial. _He’s a patient_ , you remind yourself. “Answer the question.”

“I’m not _human_ ,” he sneers, twisting his features and inadvertently demonstrating his point. You fight the urge to recoil. “I’m _better_.”

“So knew you about your platelet’s regenerative properties.” It’s not a question. Silence. “I thought so.”

The comm-port by the bed comes on, revealing the image of Admiral Marcus. He’s sitting in the captain’s chair of some Federation vessel you don’t recognize. There’s a sense of detachedness emanating from him even through the screen that crawls down your spine. “Captain Kirk.”

“Admiral Marcus,” it’s Jim’s voice now, but you don’t get a visual. Most likely, he’s sitting in the captain’s chair, hand on his chin and trying to exude calm confidence, mind going a million miles a minute. “I wasn't expecting you. That's a hell of a ship you got there.”

_He noticed, too._

“And I wasn't expecting to get word that you'd taken Harrison into custody in violation of your orders,” Marcus counters. Although his words are meant to be accusatory, his tone remains cold, like this is something he has to do in order for some larger plan to move along. The new information has you taking a step away from Khan, moving slowly closer to the screen. The other staff act similarly; Lee moves to stand and watch over your shoulder, as if this were a video on the extranet you were watching on the couch at home. _Oh, if only_.

“Well, we, ah, we had to improvise when our warp core unexpectedly malfunctioned,” Jim explains. “But you already knew that, didn't you, sir?”

“I don't take your meaning,” he says. There’s a flash in his eyes that belies his denial, an edge that serves as a warning. What for, you have yet to see.

Jim pounces. “Well, that's why you're here, isn't it? To assist with our repairs? Why else would the head of Starfleet _personally_ come to the edge of the Neutral Zone?” There’s a pause, and you hear the low murmur of a voice— Sulu, you think— speaking to Jim. His voice is measured and even when he speaks next. “Is there something I can help you find, sir?”

“Where is your prisoner, Kirk?” Marcus’s eyes are hard, boring into Jim through digital space. It’s an intimidation tactic, meant to to wither Jim, and Jim Kirk is not one to back down in a contest of wills.

“Per Starfleet regulation, I'm planning on returning Khan to Earth to stand trial.” Out of the corner of your eye, you see Carol step up to a screen, scrutinizing her father.

 _Oh shit, that’s her_ father _._

The admiral rubs a hand across his face, giving up all hopes of a façade. “Well, shit. You talked to him,” he sighs. His voice is heavy, tired from dragging the consequences of his actions all the way out to Klingon space. “This is exactly what I was hoping to spare you from. I took a tactical risk and I woke that bastard up, believing that his superior intelligence could help us protect ourselves from whatever came at us next. But I made a mistake, and now the blood of everybody he's killed is on my hands. So I'm asking you: give him to me so that I can end what I started.”

He’s not having any of it. “And what exactly would you like me to do with the rest of his crew, sir? Fire them at the Klingons? End seventy-two lives? Start a war in the process?”

“ _He_ put those people in those torpedoes. And I simply didn't want to burden you with knowing what was inside of them. You saw what this man can do all by himself.” He lifts a hand, shifting again to gesture, “Can you imagine what would happen if we woke up the rest of his crew? What else did he tell you? That he's a peacekeeper?” – _Peacekeeper my ass_ , Lee murmurs, and you can’t help but agree— “He's playing you, son, don't you see that? Khan and his crew were condemned to death as _war_ _criminals_. And now it is our duty to carry out that sentence before anybody else dies because of him. Now, I'm going to ask you again. One last time, son. Lower your shields. Tell me where he is.”

There are a few beats of silence, filled by Khan’s beeping biobed and the _Enterprise’s_ hum. Finally, Jim speaks.

“He's in Engineering, sir. But I'll have him moved to the transporter room right away.”

That’s not true at all. _Oh no, Jim. What are you playing at?_

“I'll take it from here,” he says, nodding, satisfied. The video feed cuts, and you can no longer hear either man’s voice.

The _Enterprise’s_ constant hum grows to a dull roar, and there’s a small jerk. Thankfully it’s not so jarring that you have to grab something for balance, but Lee’s hand reaches for you out of habit.

He looks around the bay, checking to make sure everyone and everything weren’t too affected by the transition into warp speed. “Well, at least we're moving again.”

“If you think you're safe at warp, you're wrong,” Khan promises, still sitting prim on the bed, voice lowering in a way you’ve yet to hear.

Carol steps back from her screen, looking at Khan with a dawning realization before hurriedly putting the PADD in her hands down and sprinting from medbay.

 The ship gets rocked by something that connects with a large _boom_ , a sound so loud you feel it well into your bones. The crash effectively bends you over the biobed next to Khan’s. Lee’s arm collides with your back in the process and knocks the wind out of you.

Metallic screams resonate through the ship, crunching and tearing her apart. The red of the klaxons rings shrill throughout the decks, the _Enterprise_ calling out to her crew for help. Your hands instinctively go to cover your ears, but you manage to keep them down and go over to one of the redshirts who looks like he hit his head in all the commotion.

“Computer, what happened?” Lee gasps, going over to another injured guard.

“Significant hull breeches in the portside; contained via airlock,” it answers. Your eyes widen, and a part of you wants to go run out and try to help the crewmen who are alive and no doubt injured, but you have patients in here, too. Jaw clenched, you shove the urge down with everything else that isn’t medicine and protocol. Pain and anxiety and exhaustion have no place in an emergency.

“Hey, are you okay?” You ask. Your hand goes to the guy’s arm; he’s not bleeding, which is good, but he might have a concussion. 

“I just bumped my head. Nothing to worry about, doctor.” He waves hand at you and uses the other to rib at the knot on his forehead.

You kneel down next to him and try to move his hand to examine the bump. “Can I run a tricorder over you real quick to make sure?”

“No, no. You have to help the other people—” He tries, resisting your efforts.

“Hey, no! I’m not the only medical personnel aboard. Right now you’re my patient,” you say. “If you’re so convinced, then a check with a tricorder will be quicker than you resisting and something actually being wrong and then me having to go back and deal with it.”

He acquiesces, getting up and sitting on a biobed two over from the one he’s supposed to be guarding. It’ll be fine; the other five in his squad are okay (Lee’s guy had just slipped and had nothing else wrong with him).

Snatching a tricorder, you give him a quick scan. “Lucky you, it’s just a nasty knot. Ice will help with the swelling, but other than that, not much else I can do for you.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

“No problem, ensign.” You turn, spotting Lee at a nearby table, the vial of Khan’s blood, a PADD, and a dead tribble laid out in front of him. Leaning over his shoulder, you ask, “Whatcha doin’?”

“Yow exactly what,” he says, pulling up the panel from Khan’s labs to confirm some values.

“Yeah, but I just wanna hear you say it.”

He sucks his teeth. “C’mon, Y/N.”

“‘I’m gonna use the magic blood on the dead tribble.’ See? Painless.” You eye the vial. Maybe one good thing can come from this awful individual.

Lee bows his head as if in prayer, but you know better. “I regret when you speak sometimes.”

“F—”

Jim strides in, effectively deterring your cussing at Lee.

Without any greeting, he makes a beeline for Khan, his blue eyes full of rage. “Tell me everything you know about that ship,” he orders, voice holding a quiet edge that you’ve only heard when he’s .03 seconds away from murder. Instinctively, you take a step closer to Lee.

“Dreadnought class,” Khan replies, unfazed. “Two times the size, three times the speed. Advanced weaponry. Modified for a minimal crew. Unlike most Federation vessels, it's built solely for combat.”

Jim considers this, chewing on his bottom lip for a couple of seconds. Taking a breath to center himself, he loosens the fist at his side before saying, “I will do everything I can to make you answer for what you did. But right now I need your help.” It isn’t a confession of weakness, and his hard voice cements this fact.

“In exchange for what?” Khan asks with a tilt of his head.

“You said you'd do anything for your crew.” The murmur of his voice is barely audible over the beeping of the biobed. “I can guarantee their safety.”

Khan scoffs. “Captain. You can't even guarantee the safety of your own crew.”

 You see Jim’s hand clench into a fist once again, his face nearly contorting into a snarl. As it is, his nostrils flare in frustration. His gaze skips over the other’s shoulder to where Lee’s bent over the PADD. “Bones, what are you doing with that tribble?”

“After analyzing the specimen Khan gave us earlier, we found out Khan has uber-regenerative platelets,” you answer immediately.

“Y/N had the bright idea of testing their regenerative properties on the necrotic tissue of a deceased host.” Lee puts his words to action by injecting the vial into the fluff ball. “Said host is a tribble, of all things.”

Jim blinks slowly, not wanting to know any more about the medical experiment you have going on. “You coming with me or not?”

Khan stands without a words and follows the captain out, his boots still not making a sound against the metal floors. The squad goes after them.

The tribble doesn’t move after a few minutes of being injected, despite your determined observation.

“I’m going to the bridge,” you announce, brushing some imaginary dust off your skirt.

“What? Why?” Lee tears his eyes from the report he’s begun on the tribble.

 “Jim just partnered up with a bad guy and didn’t tell us what’s going on. Spock will tell me why. Well, _us_ if you come with me.” With that, you turn heel and leave the sickbay. Behind you, you can hear Lee scramble to get a tricorder and set it to record constantly on the tribble before he runs into the hallway.

“You can’t just _go_ like that,” he says, making exasperated hand gestures.

The doors for the turbolift open. A teasing smile makes its way onto your face. “Why? I knew you were gonna come with.”

He quirks a brow at you. “No, you didn’t.”

“You’re right. I didn’t,” you admit.

___

“Captain, before you launch, you should be aware there is a considerable debris field between our ships,” Spock says, hands behind his back as he observes several arrays of values on the viewscreen.

 _Launch?_ Are they trying to get aboard the admiral’s ship? There’s not enough power for transport capabilities, if you remember Jim’s words correctly so that means—

“Are they seriously gonna shoot themselves over to that ship?” Lee murmurs, whether to you or to himself or to the bridge as a whole, you don’t know. It does conform that your line of reasoning wasn’t too far out there, though.

“ _Spock, not now_ ,” Jim sighs. He doesn’t hear Lee’s murmured question. A hiss of air and click signals his putting on a suit and helmet of some kind. “ _Scotty, you good?_ ”

“ _It's not easy! Just give me two seconds, alright, you mad bastard!_ ” Your eyebrows shoot up to your hairline. How the _fuck_ is he out here at the edge of Klingon space, on that monster of a ship, no less?

With a calm that you know you don’t have yourself, Lee walks over to Spock. Shoving the confusion down with everything else, you follow. “Tell me this is gonna work,” you hear Lee ask. The phrase is covered by a sheet, showing that Lee, like you, has had to shove a lot of himself away through this whole ordeal.

You look to the viewscreen, which displays the vitals of two individuals (Jim and Khan), a trajectory plot for a journey from the trash exhaust of the _Enterprise_ and an entry point on the other ship, and a readout of the other ship’s actions. Earth’s outline is barely visible through the slight transparency of the data. Your boots stick to the floor when you see the debris Spock warned Jim about.

“I have neither the information nor the confidence to do so, doctor,” Spock says, eyes trained on Jim’s heart rate. It’s beating at a steady eighty beats per minute. Lord knows you’re not even an integral part to this mission, and your heart’s beating like a bird trying to escape its cage.

“Boy, you're a real comfort,” Lee mutters, taking a look at the vital signs himself. His boots _tap, tap, tap_ on the floor as he begins to pace agitatedly.

 “ _Okay, captain, stand by_.” There are a few beeps on Scotty’s end before he says, with even more frantic energy than before, “ _Okay, okay! I'm set to open the door._ ”

Everyone holds their breath as they anticipate the captain’s words.

“ _Spock, pull the trigger._ ”

All at once, the bridge is back to its customary bustle. “Yes, captain. Launching activation sequence on three, two, one.”

Two blinking dots appear on the plot, quickly approaching the debris field. Jim’s heart rate picks up.

“Sir, Kirk is headed for collision at point four three two,” someone announces from an Engineering console.

Spock immediately relays the information, and Jim acknowledges, promising to accommodate. One of the dots veers off the trajectory. Your heart leaps into your throat.

“Whoa! Jim, you're way off course!” Lee says, eyebrows furrowing in concern. He glares at Jim’s travel path as if he could fix it through sheer willpower.

“ _I know, I know. I can see that._ ”

“Use your display compass, captain.” Sulu offers. After conferring with his console’s screen, he instructs, “You must correct precisely thirty-seven point two four three degrees.”

The dot begins to get back on course, weaving through some scattered fragments of the ship.

“ _Got it. I'm working my way back. Scotty, you're gonna be ready with that door, right?_ ” Scotty doesn’t respond. The radio silence has Jim put on his Captain’s Voice. “ _Mister Scott, where are you?_ ”

Uhura’s hands flip across a panel of switches. “Captain, he can't seem to hear you, but I'm working on getting his signal back. Stand by.”

“ _Aw hell_ ,” Jim mutters.

“Captain, what is it?” Spock asks, worriedly tracing over his vitals yet again.

“ _My helmet was hit. Uhura, tell me you have Mister Scott back_.”

“Not yet. I'm still working on a signal.” She finagles her earpiece and clicks through a couple frequencies. “His communicator is working. I don't know why he isn't responding.”

“Imminent collision detected,” an android ensign reports.

“Khan, use evasive action,” Spock orders. Jim’s dot is still making its way to the plotted course.

“ _I see it_.” His dot weaves around a large object in the space and consequently slams into something else in the more concentrated cluster he’d inadvertently entered. It flickers and winks out, taking his set of vitals with him. You gasp unintentionally.

Spock goes over to the navigation console, lips pinched at the corners. “Mister Sulu, did we lose Khan?”

“I don't know, commander.” He replies, pinching his fingers on the cluster to zoom in. “I'm having trouble tracking him in all this debris.”

“ _Was Khan hit?_ ” Jim asks.

“We are trying to find him now,” Spock affirms. Then, “Captain, you need to adjust your target destination to one eight three by four seven three degrees.”

“ _Spock, my display's dead. I'm flying blind._ ”

He strides up to the viewscreen, eyes focused as he does the math for Jim’s situation. Grimacing, he says, “Captain, without your display compass, hitting your target destination is mathematically impossible.”

“ _Spock, if I get back, we really need to talk about your bedside manner.”_

“Commander,” Sulu murmurs, “He's not going to make it.”

“ _My display is still functioning. I see you, Kirk._ ” Khan breathes, his dot reappearing on the plot. It’s back on the path, miraculously. “ _You're two hundred meters ahead of me at my one o'clock. Come to your left a few degrees and follow me._ ” Jim’s dot adjusts and thankfully, thankfully, makes it back to the intended trajectory.

“ _Scotty, we're getting close._ ” Jim warns, “ _We need a warm welcome. Do you copy? Do you copy? Scotty?_ ”

Spock continues with the little influence he has. He’s terrified for Jim— that much you can see. His voice has just the slightest edge of desperation when he says, “If you can hear us, Mister Scott, open the door in ten, nine…”

“ _Scotty!_ ” Jim shouts, blood pressure spiking. Khan remains silent, but his pulse begins to increase as well.

“Eight, seven…”

“ _Mister Scott, where are you?_ ”

“Eighteen hundred meters. Sixteen hundred meters,” the android reads. The bridge crew is forced to stare helplessly as the dots get closer and closer to the ship. _Goddammit, Scotty, c’mon!_

“ _Scotty, where are you? Do you copy, Scotty? Please!_ ” Jim begs, voice getting more hysterical with each syllable. The various stations around the bridge are still; Communications, Engineering, Navigation, everyone’s gaze focused on the screen.

“Mister Scott, open the door!” Spock cries, his eyes wide with horror as they watch the distance between the ships shrink. His knuckles are white with how hard he’s gripping Sulu’s console. Your breath catches; they’re gonna slam into the ship at high velocity. _Splat_ , and then they join the debris field.

“ _Open the door!_ ”

“Mister Scott, now!” It’s mere pixels at this point. You want to close your eyes, cover your ears, to stop yourself from witnessing your friend and captain’s death, but you find yourself unable to tear your eyes away.

Jim’s pulse spikes a final time, and you wait for the awful moment when his and Khan’s vitals blink off the viewport.

It doesn’t come.

“They’re on the ship, commander,” Sulu exhales, a tired smile on his face.

“Commander, I have that transmission as requested,” Uhura calls, a hand at her ear.

 _Transmission?_ You share a confused look with Lee, and he shrugs. Is he going to try and report Marcus to the rest of Starfleet? Even if the _Enterprise_ is well within lunar orbit, to get reinforcements right now would take a significant amount of time. And you doubt that Marcus will go down without a fight. Taking him prisoner and forcing him to stand trial is not an option.

Spock visibly collects himself, the color returning to his face and the tension from Jim’s near death flaking off him. “On screen, please.”

She nods, and after a murmured S _tand by_ , the viewscreen is occupied by a face that nearly matches your Commander’s.

 Ambassador Spock’s features are lined with age, and his dark eyes sparkle with familiarity, the corners of his mouth seemingly poised to smile.

“Mister Spock,” he says, a small curl to his lips as he inclines his head.

“Mister Spock.” The commander inclines his head in return. “I will be brief. In your travels, did you ever encounter a man named Khan?”

The name wipes the smile from his face, and pain, long felt and never truly healed, flashes through his eyes. His gaze is serious as he looks at his counterpart. “As you know, I have made a vow never to give you information that could potentially alter your destiny. Your path is yours to walk, and yours alone.” He looks at your commander, and his gaze softens once more, losing the edge. The ambassador must’ve seen Spock’s entreaty, because he continues, “That being said, Khan Noonien Singh is the most dangerous adversary the _Enterprise_ ever faced. He is brilliant, ruthless, and he will not hesitate to kill every single one of you.”

 _That’s lovely._ You bite your lip, eyebrows furrowing, hand going to the wrist with your bracelet.

“Did you defeat him?” Spock asks, resolved.

He seems to recognize something in the young commander, because the pain flares up again. “At great cost. Yes.”

“How?”

Memory glazes his eyes, and he’s not looking at Spock, not really, when he responds. “We protected his crew.”

Dread, cold and heavy, coalesces in your stomach, sapping any warmth from your body. Reflexively, you take a step back. The thought of helping Khan slaps you in the face with it’s wrongness. How could Ambassador Spock and his crew have possibly used Khan’s frozen crew against him?

Spock grows rigid with contemplation for a moment. “Live long and prosper,” he murmurs, hand forming the ta’al. The ambassador reciprocates, and the transmission ends. Immediately after, Spock purposefully strides over to Uhura. “Lieutenant, I need you to assemble all senior medical and engineering staff in the weapons bay.”

“Alright.”

The Vulcan rounds on you now, causing you to startle. “Doctor L/N, you inadvertently activated a torpedo. Could you replicate the process?”

“Why, Spock, would I ever want to do that?” Your voice comes out much quieter than you intend it to. Gaze on the floor, you whisper, “I thought I was gonna die the last time that happened. Not really something I wanna experience again.”

“Can you or can you not?”

Your eyes are huge as you look back up to Spock, and you open your mouth, but the words you want to say aren’t coming out. “I…”

Lee steps forward, placing himself in front of you to shield you from his words. “Dammit, Spock, she’s a doctor, not a torpedo technician!” He growls.

“The fact that you are both doctors is precisely why I need you to listen very carefully,” Spock explains. “Because Doctor Marcus is not here, we require someone who has experience with the torpedoes. Khan’s crew must be removed from the missiles without being disturbed in their tubes.”

A gasp claws its way up your throat as Lee exclaims, “ _What_? Are you out of your mind?”

“Khan will most likely attempt to overthrow Admiral Marcus and assume command of the ship,” Spock says, gaze distant as he walks his way through the scenario. Suddenly, his dark eyes are once again focused, boring into yours and Lee’s in turn. “This will most likely include holding our crewmembers hostage in exchange for the torpedoes that contain his crewmen. As such, we will not give him his crew.”

“Okay, then,” you breathe, not seeing another way around it. Jim’s life is at stake; this isn’t the time to try and pull out some fancy negotiation tactics. Time to pull the same slickness on Khan that he’s used plenty of times before. “You said weapons bay?”

He inclines his head, both in acknowledgement and gratitude. “Correct.”

“Alright, Lee. Let’s go,” you say, already walking towards the turbolift.

___

Chris gives you a skeptical look over the torpedo. “You need what, now?”

“We’re moving the popsicles out of their ‘explosive’ casing, and then the engineers are gonna put real bombs in there.”

“And how do we know that _all_ of them contain cryo tubes?” John asks, eyes warily skipping over the rows of weapons.

“Guys, just please partner up with an engineer,” you sigh, voice going raw form exhaustion. Pinching the bridge of your nose, you wait until they do as they’re told. “We need to move fast. If we each take nine tubes, we should be done real quick. As soon as they pop open the panel with a circular set of wires on the inside— looks kinda like a donut if you squint— just rip it out, watch as the tube gets revealed, and make sure the life support systems on the tubes aren’t messed with. Painless, I promise. And then we have to transport these things to medbay. Good?”

You’re met with several nods in return along with a few unconvinced expressions. Some even have a combination of both. _Great_.

Someone, big and burly, with a five o’clock shadow and bright eyes, comes up to you. Must be your engineer. “Hi, Doctor L/N. I’m Michael. Michael Sanders.”

“That name sounds familiar…” you say, giving the— you peak at his sleeve— lieutenant a friendly smile. “There was an ensign with that last name, but it definitely wasn’t you.”

“That’s my wife. Mary,” he says, boots clinking on the metal floor as he walks around to the opposite side of the torpedo. His fingers begin working on the keypad. “You helped her when the whole thing with Nero happened. Thank you.”

The panel he needs pops off, and he makes quick work of the wiring. Immediately after, the large protecting plate slides back, revealing the cryo tube. A woman lies inside, her olive skin surprisingly not sallow after the centuries of confinement. “No problem. It’s my job.”

“Christ. You weren’t kidding,” he murmurs, voice going even softer when he sees the frost lining the glass. Your hands reach for the module that details the life-sustaining environment for the tube. It winks on, and the values appear to be within normal ranges. Waving a nearby set of strongmen, you motion for them to remove the tube so its refitting can begin.

The other eight tubes come out just as easily, and the medical staff monitor their eight ‘popsicles’ while they’re being relocated.

You’re walking through the rows of cryo tubes, documenting their various states of power, when the shouts reach your ears. Jim bursts through the doors carrying a screaming Carol, followed by a distressed Scotty, and you don’t have time to register what’s going on before your Doctor Mode kicks in. The captain calls for you and Lee, laying the petite woman on the biobed. Even through her writhing, you see the unnatural angling of her leg. _Femur fracture_ , your brain supplies, _osteo-regen_.

“Nurse!” Lee calls, beginning to set the doctor’s leg. She shrinks away from his touch, but he remains firm. Chris appears next to him moments later, osteo-regen in hand, and assists him. You go over to help hold Carol down.

“Good to see you, Jim,” you grunt as another scream tears up Carol’s throat. For some reason, she immediately quiets afterword, and you looks over to see Chris— goddess, angel she is— holding a hypo in her hand, most likely recently devoid of sedative. Leaning back, you give the captain your full attention.

Jim’s eyes are wide as he catches his breath. “You helped Spock detonate those torpedoes?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely I did.”

“He killed Khan's crew,” he says, brows drawing together, a muscle in his jaw twitching. He didn’t expect Spock to be willing to end seventy-two lives in an instant, even if they were ‘enemies’. They were defenseless nonetheless. Scotty’s eyes glance over to you worriedly. That’s heavy shit to get into.

A whine starts up as Lee positions the machine over Carol’s fracture. Not looking up from pushing in the orders to begin the mending process, he replies for you. “Spock's cold, but he's not that cold.  _We've_  got Khan's crew.” He waves a hands in the direction of the room you’d come out of when Jim first entered. “Seventy-two human popsicles safe and sound in their cryo tubes.”

“Son of a bitch,” he breathes, and you find yourself giving a little bounce on your toes in pride.

“Yea—” Everything starts to tilt, and the bright white lights flicker before they go out, the walls stained red with the emergency power lighting. Supplies fall, useless, to the floor, and anything that isn’t nailed down begins to slide from its position. Your stomach drops, and you have the distinct feeling that you’re falling.

Lee grasps the biobed for support, trying his best not to jostle the osteo-regen he’d just programmed. “Engage emergency lockdown!” He calls. You begin to stagger over to them, reaching for the straps that would keep Carol from being tossed out of her biobed. Lee begins to work in tandem with you. “I hope you don't get seasick,” he murmurs to the sedated woman.

Her eyes are huge, spaced out and not fully present, when she slurs, “Do you?”

The _Enterprise_ lurches again, and Lee looks out into space for a second before swallowing and collecting himself. “Yeah.”

“Scotty, I think something _may_ be wrong with the warp core,” you yell when the ship rocks again. “Spock would’ve transferred to auxiliary power by now.”

Scotty sprints out the bridge, Jim following close behind, voice nearly a shriek. “ _One_ bloody day! That’s all I was—”

Once you finish securing Carol, you try to make your way over to everyone else, using hand and foot-holds that present themselves with the ship’s heaves. There are points during the descent where things being to shake; the rattling goes far into your bones, making your teeth click. Adrenaline takes any heat you’d had in your hands, and ice seems to stiffen your joins. In the bloody light of the room, you see Lee and the other struggling as well. At least the bay isn’t so big that any distance you may fall has a chance of killing you. All of the bigger items had fallen away with the first big jerks, and things hadn’t tilted so much that you’ve had to hang from your fingertips. Not yet, anyway.

“ _Evacuation protocol_ ,” Computer announces, and now even the red emergency lights waver. Your eyes widen to dinner plates. Spock believes that you’re all going to die, then. You have no idea how long you’ve been falling for, so the time until you burn up is a mystery to you. The cryo tubes clonk together uselessly over in their little section.

The ship levels out, and your feet stumble against where the incline once was. Lee rushes over to keep you from injuring yourself, his string hand gripping your upper arms and hauling you up. An undignified squeal gets past your lips, but other than your dignity, you’re still unharmed. A glance over to Carol’s biobed reveals that she is also still okay. More shaking, but no more rough pulls in any direction.

Everyone’s eyes dart to one another, question in their gazes. _Are you going to run to the shuttles and have a chance of survival?_ The fact that no one’s foot moves even a millimeter stands as answer enough.

The lights waver a final time, and you look up, expecting them to cut off for good and plunge all of you into your final darkness. Instead, white sears your retinas less than a second later, and you hear the groan of ship-wide systems beginning the process of rebooting. _The power was turned back on_. You run to the cryo tubes and check on the life support systems, double checking to make sure no one had been altered. Everyone remains frozen and asleep.

A high comm whistle cuts through the stunned silence, and Lee fumbles in his pocket before pulling out the device. All eyes settle in him.

“McCoy,” Lee rasps.

“ _Doctor McCoy, please come down to the warp core_.” Spock’s voice breaks on the last word. “ _Bring Doctor L/N with you_.”

Your chest constricts painfully, something snapping, splintering. Jim fixed the war core.

Time stops as you meet Lee’s eyes over the comm still in his open hand, both of you realizing that he’s _in_ the warp core. Alone and no doubt irradiated. Choking, damaged. _Dying._

Carol’s biobed nearby beeps on as if the universe wasn’t just forced to its knees.

An aborted breath gets caught in your throat. It chokes you and forces the air out in a painful stutter. There is no time to waste, if there is any time at all left, to save Jim. The sound of Lee’s comm snapping closed pushes you to move, your feet moving before you can actually process the order to make them move. Procedure is irrelevant as far as either of you are concerned right now— Chris is competent enough on her own, anyway— and neither of you announce your rapid fleeing of the medbay.

Crewmen quickly dodge out of your way if they’re not still recovering from the recently fixed power failure. Even though you’re sprinting to the turbolift, it doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. Quite the opposite, actually, the white of the corridor stretching, stretching, stretching. You do make it, however, nearly slamming into the door in your haste.

When the lift opens, you stagger in, and, not trusting your fingers in the rush, huff out, “Computer, take us to Engineering. Warp core.”

Lee stares through you from the other side of the lift. _Unfathomable_. A muscle in his jaw twitches, a sign of fatigue from being clenched too long. He, like you, doesn’t want to verbalize what you may encounter when you meet Spock. You fix your messy hair in an attempt to distract yourself. The routine motions serve as a way to busy your hands; better than simply waiting and digging your nails into your palms.

There is no poise in this small space. No indication at all that either of you are the ‘acclaimed’ L/N and McCoy. Professional habit prevents you from crumpling up into a shadow of yourself and screaming, crying, letting the hot and heavy tears course down you cheeks; prevents you from becoming the red, blotchy mess you need to devolve into right now. Lee looks like he’s on the same precipice you are. It hurts to breathe with how much you’re holding your breath.

The only noise is the shushed whooshing as you descend to the bowels of the ship and the slip of your hair being pulled back out of your face. The lights of passing decks shine through the doors, illuminating the oppressive white surrounding you, and the few quiet seconds give you too much time to think.

_Jim is trapped by the same radiation protocols meant to shield him, his organs failing as they’re assaulted by an invisible force. His very DNA broken down, cells being torn apart._

The doors slide open, revealing a surprisingly empty corridor. Lee’s longer legs get him out and ahead of you, and you’re left to play catch-up. While you run, Scotty exits a room on the left, disrupting the quiet hallway with a crying Uhura. He pulls her aside, for comfort and to get her out of the way to allow you and Lee to sprint into the room.

Spock is on his knees, his back curled and heaving with the effort of his breath. His hand begins to slip from where it was resting against the glass of the door in the ta’al. He’s shaking, shuddering like he’s too close to falling apart. His arms wrap around his middle, as if to keep himself from literally breaking. What surprises you is how silent he is. Spock’s grief is all-encompassing, seeming to make the walls themselves vibrate in mirrored anguish.

Jim’s outline is just visible from where you and Lee stand, and slowly, slowly like you may spook the vulnerable animal guarding the door, you move forward. There isn’t even a tap of footsteps to signal your approach.

Blond hair, bright blue eyes, Command gold; hours of studying and laughing and simply being— come up in a whirl. It clashes so violently with the sight in front of you– still, red-eyed, unblinking, blue, and slack-jawed, not _breathing_ — that you gasp, a strangled sound in your throat. Tears flow, unbidden, down your cheeks, blurring your view of your best friend’s body. It feels so inherently wrong, like reality is distorted and you’re experiencing something that isn’t— can’t— actually, be happening.

“ _KHAN!_ ” The word is torn from Spock in a visceral scream. Rage. Pain. Loneliness.

“ _Decontamination complete_ ,” Computer informs the room, the statement lost in the deafening silence. The door to the anteroom opens and unceremoniously drops Jim— Jim’s _body_ , you correct yourself— into the space in front of you.

Spock lunges, his hands going to cradle Jim’s head and the rest of him to curl around his body protectively.

“Spock,” Lee says. The sound tears your eyes from the sight in front of you, and you’re reminded of your duties. Your face sets, and you try your best to ignore the tears that keep coming. “Spock, we have to take him to medbay.”

“ _Do not touch him_ ,” Spock hisses. Gently, so gently that you’d think he was trying to keep Jim from being disturbed from sleep, he folds him into his arms. Jim looks too small cradled against Spock’s chest. His words are barely even a whisper when he speaks next. “I will leave him in sickbay and then return to the bridge.”

Lee murmurs his assent, and you slide the heel of your palm up the side of your face before you nod too.

___

When Spock places Jim’s body in the biobed, your heart splinters yet again at the lack of customary beeping. Chris, John, and everyone else gather round to witness the grim procession, and you just can’t help it anymore. Without another word, you run to the office, locking the door behind you as the tears fall anew, blotching your face, making it even harder to breathe. You wrap your arms around yourself, not unlike Spock, and sink to your knees, letting your grief crest over you like a wave.

The door slides open without you noticing, and there’s too much going on inside your head for you to even flinch at the unexpected touch on your back. On instinct, you throw yourself onto Lee, not caring about the tears, snot, and whatever else you’re tracking all over his uniform. His chest shudders beneath you, and his arms wind around you even tighter.

Something soft rubs against your leg, and your leg spasms at the contact. There’s a small chirp from where your hand reaches down to feel the fur. You stiffen within the circle of your boyfriend’s arms. “Lee— Lee! Leonard!” He quickly releases you, eyes large with alarm. You grab the fluff ball, noting the brown fur and its contented purring at the contact. _Definitely alive._ “This is a tribble right? _The_ tribble?”

“Yes… yes!” He yells, hope in his eyes. Both of you scramble up, not caring about how wrecked you look, and burst out of the office. “Get a cryo tube, now!”

There’s a beat of stunned silence before everyone jumps into action. They choose the closest one and begin to wheel it over. The internal lights flicker on at the interaction.

“Lee, are we gonna use another person’s blood? We only know that Khan’s does this,” you say, placing the tribble down on the nearest flat surface.

He strides over to Jim’s bed, running a hand through his hair. “We at least need the cryo tube. It’s the only way to preserve his brain function.”

“I know, I know. But we don’t have the time to run the tests and see if the guy we’re kicking out has the same platelets.” You cast your eyes down to Jim’s still form, tracing his features and praying to God that what you’re about to do will work.

“So you’re saying…” He gaze rests dejectedly on the tribble, shoulders falling.

You nod, meeting Lee’s eyes when he looks back to you. “We need more of Khan’s blood.”

The others come over, tube in tow, and everything begins to move very quickly. Lee orders that the man inside be removed and placed into an induced coma, his voice hard at the thought of letting another one of these bastards out. The life support systems respond with little delay, thank god, and the transition of getting him out is relatively painless.

Stepping away, you flip open your comm. “ _Enterprise_ to Spock.” No response. “Spock!” You hear Lee muttering to activate the cryogenic sequence and change the frequency to that of the bridge. “L/N to bridge. I can't reach Spock. We need Khan alive. You get that son of a bitch back on board right now! I think he can save Jim.”

“ _Got it_.”

They gingerly lower Jim into the tank, sealing him in. As frost crawls up the inside of the glass, relief ekes out of you in a sigh. He won’t lose any neural function now.

While you wait for Khan to be delivered, you effectively maul your lower lip, inside and out. Lee paces, too preoccupied to tell you to quit. Your mind is full of possibilities. If Khan comes back, he’ll be knocked out and restrained for good measure. Then, you’ll warm Jim back up and do the transfusion. Maybe even some adrenaline to jumpstart his heart. If Jim wakes up, he’ll have to go through months of therapy. If he doesn’t, then this will all have been for naught. That’s also the case if Spock doesn’t come back with Khan— you’ll just have a frozen corpse and nothing to show for it.

The _Enterprise_ is still airborne when Spock comes in, an unconscious Khan slung gracelessly over his shoulder. He deposits him none too kindly on the biobed nearest Jim, a nasty snarl curling his lips, his nostrils flaring. Patches of green have bloomed beneath his skin since you last saw him. Not seeing the need for any preamble, you grab a handful of auto-vens and go over to Khan. Lee joins you opposite of Khan, his own set in hand. Together, you fill medbay with sounds of periodic hisses and clicks while you take what you need from the murderer occupying the biobed.

___

You are a control freak.

Lee is  _insufferable_  with his patients. 

But this is more, because it’s Jim of all people. Jim, who blasts his music too loudly, and never keeps his fork in his own bowl. Jim who you had to shove inside centuries old machinery to keep him alive even for a little bit. It’s so much and you can’t do anything and neither can Lee because this is deep-end medicine– 

So Lee retreats and begins to calculate while you refuse to move.

He doesn’t say a word, but his presence weighs heavy in the ICU, ever-watchful and constantly breathing down the back of Hunt’s neck. He’s professional, almost detached, even, but his gaze is dark, and his eyes flash dangerously. You keep quiet, knowing that you can’t snap needlessly, but the words in your eyes, your objections, ring like a scream in the silences. Owen keeps his tone soft and his attention on his patient, and he’s abundantly relieved when it’s appropriate to turn care over to Nurse Chapel.

It’s much the same in the operating room, when Jim’s heart needs to be nurtured after his dip with death. Lee is the only board-certified trauma surgeon on the _Enterprise_ , and you are a cardiothoracic specialist; emergent cases belong to him, ethics be damned, and he isn’t going anywhere you can’t too. He sheds the role of Lee, of Bones, of the unassuming country doctor, of boyfriend and lover. Here, he is Doctor Leonard H. McCoy, pioneer of his field, one of finest surgeons in the ‘fleet with his best partner. Here, he is in his element. He is poised, controlled, his hands steady and sure, his movements confident and calculated, precise like a scalpel. He pushes it all aside, all the fear and doubts and what-ifs, because he  _must,_  because he is a surgeon, because  _this is what it takes to save a life._ You are nearly the opposite. Of course your hands are sure, careful, never taking risks, keeping damage to a minimum with your precise movements, but throughout the procedure, everything screams at you. Those same fears and doubts and what-ifs cause your breath to be just a bit heavier, nearly split your ears from how much they reverberate around your skull.

Postoperatively, when care is turned back over to Owen, Lee slinks to the edge of the room. He doesn’t pace, he doesn’t mutter, he doesn’t fidget. It’s a marvel; your palms are nearly cut with how hard you clench your hands at points, but you remain at Jim’s bedside. If you can’t give your hands, then you have to give your soul, your time, the space under your eyes. But you don’t cry. Not anymore. It’s just a matter of time till he wakes up, is all.

 Lee  _watches **,**_ holds stock still, face made of stone. His sharp gaze follows Chris as she makes her rounds, and he corrects Owen’s pain management orders with a curt word. He keeps his hands held stiffly at his sides, fingers twitching just slightly when Owen pulls back the covers to check Jim’s circulation, his breathing, the surgical site beneath the miles and miles of clean, white bandages.

Chris keeps waiting for you two to break, for the inevitable moment when the walls that’ve been carefully constructed behind the patient privacy curtain of Jim’s post-op stop come crashing down in a terrifying show of rubble.

Hours pass, then a day, then two, and it never happens. 

On the third day, Chris shows up early. It’s hours until her actual shift, but sleep’s eluded her, so Chris gives it up for a lost cause and makes her way to the ICU. 

She ducks her head around the curtain of bay two, meaning to get a head start on shift assessments, and stops still.

Lee’s slumped in a chair next to the biobed. He’s got his left hand clasped tightly around your right, his other pillowing his head up near the pillows. His face is buried in the crook of your neck where you’re laying across Jim. His eyes are shut, lips parted just slightly to allow small sips of air to pass through.

Chris thinks, for half a second, that he’s sleeping. She takes a little step back, rustling the curtain softly.

Lee stirs when you don’t, craning his neck just enough to look Chris in the face. 

Her breath stops behind her teeth.

Lee’s eyes are glassy and red-rimmed. The cutting focus is gone now, leaving an empty ruin in its wake. His face is drawn, still expressionless, but softer now, etched with  _something_  that makes him appear as if he’ll crack to tiny pieces at any moment.

They look at each other for a long moment, the very dust in the air not willing to move in the warning of Lee’s gaze.

Lee huffs a deep, shaky sigh through his nose and stands slowly. He bends over you when you stir, calming to make sure you continue to rest, because this is the longest you’ve slept in literal days, dammit, and presses his lips to your hair in a gesture that’s not quite a kiss, but  _more_ somehow. His eyelids slide shut, and he pauses for all of a heartbeat, as if to breathe you in, or to gather his resolve. 

Chris feels suddenly that she should avert her gaze.

Len straightens abruptly. “Page me with any changes,” he says tonelessly in a voice that comes from a place not within himself. It’s cracked, nearly shattered in a way that differentiates itself from his usual spark, devoid of any emotion other than exhausted resolve.

He brushes past Chris, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. No eye contact, not another word.

Nothing does change. Not for another twelve days. Lee and you resolve to take shifts by the end of the first week, and you’ve just come back from getting your fourth cup of coffee when a blue you thought you were never going to see again stares up at you from the hospital bed.

“Hi,” you whisper, unable to say anything else and clutching the Styrofoam in your hand for dear life.

“Hey,” he rasps, trying, failing to sit up a bit. “What happened?”

It feels like it bubbles out of you, the words— you— wanting to rush and climb into the bed with him. Instead, your feet remain firmly planted, the coffee in your hand shaking with the repressed joy. “You _died_.” Jim opens his mouth to say something else, but you stop him. “Shh, shh. Don’t overexert yourself. I have to get Lee— and— and Owen.”

Stepping out of the room, you wave Doctor Hunt over and inform him of Jim’s improvement. He quickly goes in, and you comm Lee, not wanting to chance the delay of a page.

“ _McCoy_.”

“Come over, right now,” you say, bouncing on your toes. He makes a noise of question, but you continue over him. “It’s Jim. He—he— Jim woke up, Lee.”

A breath of silence, then, “ _I’ll be over in forty-five seconds_.”

You reenter the room and go back to Jim’s side, picking up his and Owen’s conversation. It’s mostly him checking on Jim, asking how he’s feeling and the like. Lee stands in the doorway by the time you’ve settled, his eyes disbelieving for all of five seconds before he walks over. Doctor Hunt seems to be finished with his line of questioning for now, and he bids you all farewell before exiting.

“So. Y/N says I died,” Jim announces, giving Lee a teasing raise of his brows. Despite his joking, you feel a rush of relief at seeing his face have some color again.

Lee snorts. “Oh, don't be so melodramatic. You were barely dead. It was the transfusion that really took its toll. You were out cold for two weeks. Needed a spot of heart surgery.”

“Transfusion?” Jim asks, eyebrows quirking. His blowing over the heart surgery for the transfusion has you clicking your teeth to keep your jaw from dropping. This idiot focuses on the most bizarre details.

“Your cells were heavily irradiated,” you say, nodding. You reach for his hand, cold, but beginning to warm. “We had no choice.”

“Khan?”

“Once we caught him, I synthesized a serum from his super-blood,” Lee informs him, glancing at his vitals. Thankfully, they are within normal human levels, so it wasn’t like the blood transformed him or anything. His voice dips, expression faux-serious, “Tell me, are you feeling homicidal? Power mad? Despotic?”

“No more than usual. How'd you catch him?”

“We didn’t,” you say. Lee jerks his head in the direction of the door, and both you and Jim are surprised to see him there.

Spock looms awkwardly in the doorway, his lips parted in relief and incredulity. Slowly, he makes his way over, his hands unfolding from behind his back.

“You saved my life,” Jim breathes, a smile warming his features.

“It was more of a team effort,” Lee mutters, disgruntled. You shoot him a quieting look, despite your agreeing with him.

“You saved my life, captain, and the lives of—”

He holds a hand up in both an attempt to stop the words and to reach. “Spock, just. Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Jim.” A smile, real genuine, full-on, splits his face. _God, this goober is so in love_. “Also, I wished to inform you: we have been awarded the five year exploratory mission.”

Lee and Jim move together to get a better look at Spock, testing his authenticity. “No we didn’t,” they say simultaneously, Lee’s worry bleeding into his expression and Jim’s joy physically brightening the room around him.

“Indeed. We shall depart once your physical therapy has concluded.”

The words don’t pierce, but Lee’s softly muttered _“Fuck me”_ does the job.

 


End file.
